This year, we've documented what we believe to be the 8th and 9th!
When a whale dies and falls to the seafloor, it provides an enormous amount of food, habitat, and shelter for a large variety of organisms living on the seafloor.
And since the deep seafloor is an area of the ocean that is highly barren and devoid of large food sources, whale falls provide an extremely substantial and nutrient-rich source of energy for almost every seafloor species. In fact, more than 200 different species have been found to benefit from whale falls.
A single whale fall can provide nutrients and shelter to organisms for decades! With the amount of time depending on the size of the whale, the water temperature, and the depth. Over time, different organisms are present at a whale fall depending upon the stage of decomposition that the whale is at.
Although a lot is known about whale falls, there is still so much to learn. The images we've collected, along with the depth, temperature, salinity, and location data collected by our underwater camera vehicle at the time the image was taken, will all be very useful to scientists wanting to learn more about whale falls.
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| The bones making up a whale's vertebrae clearly laid out on the seafloor. |
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| The second set of whale vertebrae bones our team imaged on the Antarctic deep seafloor. |
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| Part of the skull remained part of the second whale fall we spotted on this expedition. |
We photographed these whale falls off the western coast of the Western Antarctic Peninsula between 500 and 1,000 meters below the Southern ocean's surface. Since there are so few natural whale falls that have been seen, needless to say our team was ecstatic to see these images pop up on the screen!
To learn more about the whale fall we discovered last year, read our scientific publication: Discovery of a recent, natural whale fall on the continental slope off Western Antarctic Peninsula
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