Then they observed the conical, big eggs protecting the slopes of the risky peak, which soars to a peak of 1100 metres and is situated practically 1.5-kilometres beneath the floor of the Pacific Ocean.
The volcano has been dubbed NEPDEP 58, and is one in every of greater than 45 new seamounts mapped by the expedition.
She defined the eggs belong to the Pacific white skate, Bathyraja spinosissima.
“I was in disbelief when I realised the seamount top was covered in hundreds of thousands of skate eggs, maybe a million,” Du Preez advised 9news.com.au.
Prior to the discover, the one different recognized Pacific white skate nursery was within the Galapagos and solely a pair dozen eggs have been noticed there.
“But really, at that point, we had just scratched the surface of what was to come.”
Du Preez and the workforce then witnessed a “one-of-a-kind encounter”.
“And just like that (we saw), a large female skate ‘swoop’ to the seafloor.
“I had speculated what it’d seem like after they laid, and the swoop was precisely as I’d imagined.
“We documented it all. She flew down to the seafloor and used the corals to bush up against and pull the egg. At this point, you couldn’t ask for more.
“The behaviour was lovely. The encounter was one-of-a-kind”.
“We deployed the submersible thermometer, and that is after we found the volcano was venting hydrothermal fluid, which is a uncommon discovery on the earth and a primary in Canada,” she said.
“That was it – the draw for the skates.
“Warmth is thought to accelerate incubation times and result in more successful young hatching.
“Here, on this wonderful nursery floor, they’re sheltered from predators by the corals and warmed by the volcano itself,
“We believe that the eggs are safe here, the juveniles grow to be strong, and the young have a better chance at survival, to grow larger, descend into the deep, and wander the open ocean.”
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The fruitful expedition wrapped in June and had been exploring the deep sea since 2017.
“This is so important considering the current question of deep-sea mining of seamounts for their cobalt crust.”
The workforce are but to publish their findings.
Source: www.9news.com.au
