There are life forms even in the deepest ocean trenches VIDEO

In the deepest ocean trenches , which are also among the most unexplored areas on the planet , live animal species that store energy in previously unknown ways. The discovery, published in the journal Nature, is the result of research coordinated by Xiaotong Peng and Mengran Du, both of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, with Vladimir V. Mordukhovich of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The new species were discovered during a scientific expedition aboard the Fendouzhe submersible, which traveled over 2,500 kilometers in the northwestern Pacific , along the Kuril-Kamchatka and Western Aleutian Trenches, at depths ranging from 5,800 to 9,533 meters .

The new species discovered at these depths are marine tubeworms , worms that live inside self-constructed tubes, called siboglinid polychaetes . Bivalve mollusks have also been discovered that synthesize energy using hydrogen sulfide and methane that escape from plate tectonic faults, most likely produced by microorganisms that populate organic matter in the sediments. This is an example of how organisms living in extreme environments can adapt to produce energy in different ways . Instead of using sunlight and photosynthesis, at these depths, where light has never reached before, the new species use chemosynthesis , or chemical reactions. According to the authors of the study, life forms like these may be more widespread than previously thought. "These findings ," they write, " call into question current models of life at the extreme edges and of the deep-ocean carbon cycle ."