Quest for the Limit of Life An around-the-world voyage by the SHINKAI 6500 QUELLE 2013

Quest-1

Looking for insights into the early evolution of life

There is active hydrothermal activity in this area, which is a habitat for unusual organisms such as the scaly-foot gastropod , a snail with scales made of iron sulfi des. It is very likely that hydrogen was a source of energy for early life; this marine area has sites spouting hot water with high hydrogen concentrations. The mission here will be to attempt to understand early evolution by studying the resident organisms.

Chief Scientists

Quest-2

The deepest dive of a human-occupied research submersible in the South Atlantic

The Rio Grande Rise is an immense ridge, that rises more than 5000 m above the ocean floor in the South Atlantic. This survey will discover how marine communities change with depth and geology. We expect to find a variety of organisms and habitats.
The Sao Paulo Ridge is where material derived from the Earth’s mantle is exposed at the sea floor. Recently, chemosynthetic communities* were discovered in areas surrounding a similar environment in the Marianas Trench in the Western Pacific. We expect to find similar chemosynthetic communities in the Sao Paulo Ridge area.
The Sao Paulo Plateau has extensive natural gas and oil fields, and possibly the world’s most extensive chemosynthetic communities. If chemosynthetic communities are found here, they would be the first discovered in the South Atlantic.

* Chemosynthetic communities: Biological communities based on energy from chemical sources, such as hydrogen sulfide and methane emitted from hydrothermal vents.

Chief Scientists

Quest-1

Are there organisms living at 500°C at deep hydrothermal fields?

The Cayman Rise is said to have 500 °C seawater spouting from hydrothermal vents. Here we will survey the habitable limits of life and reveal survival strategies in extreme environments, such as symbiosis between macro- and microorganisms.
At one time the Pacific and Atlantic oceans were connected, and there was exchange of organisms between them.
However, 3 million years ago a land bridge connected South and North America, separating the two oceans and isolating the resident organisms from each other. We will survey how organisms originating in the Pacific evolved in the Atlantic, and explore their adaptations and subsequent evolution.

Chief Scientist

Quest-1

To the world’s second-deepest submarine trench

At JAMSTEC, we have investigated the Challenger Deep in the Marianas Trench, the deepest known point in the world’s oceans (10,911 m). However, we have not yet investigated the world’s second-deepest trench - the Tonga Trench (10,850 m depth). By investigating the Tonga Trench and comparing the deepest and the second-deepest areas in the world’s oceans, we will be closer to understanding ultra-deep-sea ecosystems.
The Louisville Seamount Chain is quickly subducting into the Tonga and Kermadec trenches. We will investigate a number of these seamounts to find out how communities change with depth.

Chief Scientists

Copyright 2012 Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, www.jamstec.go.jp/e/