Scientists discover 149 new deep-sea species at remote Indian Ocean seamounts

An international team of 33 researchers surveyed dozens of previously unstudied seamounts near Australia's Christmas and Cocos islands, cataloguing 1,059 species at depths from 94 to 5,431 meters, 149 of them new to science.

The expedition, using the research vessel RV Investigator and a beam trawl dragged along the seafloor, turned up a new sea cucumber, a new fish, a parasitic barnacle, and roughly 1,000 shark teeth spanning 22 million years at a site the team dubbed the Shark Graveyard.

Researchers also mapped previously unknown underwater volcanic features, including a caldera nicknamed the Eye of Sauron, and noted that the shark-tooth site also contained mineral-rich nodules prized for deep-sea mining.

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