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Ancient fossils now reveal that the cryptical ocean may be the lineage of many lineages of ocean animate being discover closer to the surface , such as a number of ocean stars , ocean urchins and snail , researchers say .
These new finding indicate the deep ocean has played a much greater role in producing and preserving diversity in marine life than once thought , scientists added .
A closer look of a deep-sea brittle star.
The mystifying sea was long thought to be a exanimate desert . Intense research in the last few ten , however , has revealed that it in reality endure one of the high levels of biodiversity onEarth .
There were few knownfossils of cryptic - ocean lifeolder than about 100 million years . Due to the paucity of ancient record of deep - ocean life , scientists often advise that deep - sea communities originated from colonies in shallow waters .
Now , with the help of unpaid paleontologist Gero Moosleitner , scientists have discovered fogey of 180 - million - year - former rich - ocean animals in the Austrian Alps . These now shed light on the surprising account of cryptic - sea life . [ See Images of Ancient and Modern Deep - Sea Life ]
Fossil sea urchin in the family Aspidodiadematidae from deep-sea rocks of the Alps near Salzburg, Austria. Close relatives of this sea urchin still live in the present-day deep sea.
" hoi polloi always assume that biodiversity start up in shallow waters and motion to the deep sea , but these determination are grounds that the deep ocean may be a neglected source of biodiversity,“said lead sketch author Ben Thuy , an invertebrate paleontologist at the National Museum of Natural History of Luxembourg .
A landslide in Glasenbach Gorge near the city of Salzburg in Austria exposed the fossils . Then , over the grade of a decennium , Moosleitner amass the fossils , alerting Thuy and his fellow worker of the treasure trove there .
" The gradient of the gullet we get fossils from were quite steep , which made oeuvre a minute difficult , but it was also quite fun , " Thuy secern Live Science . " We dug up the tilt , put it in a sieve , and washed [ the rocks ] in the creek fall to get fogy . It was a bit like pan for Au . "
The scientists derive that these fossil get from deep - sea down payment from the absence of fossils of light - dependent organisms , as well as from physical similarities between the stone besiege the dodo with modern cryptic - sea rock . The 2,500 or so fossils included the oldest - know members of a numeral of groups of deep - ocean creatures alive today .
Previously , theoldest - known fossilsof a numeral of modern groups of mystifying - ocean being were find out in shallow - water deposit . This suggested that these moderndeep - ocean creaturesevolved from immigrant from shallow water system . The newfound fossils Thuy and his co-worker analyse , which predate earlier findings by more than 25 million years , instead suggest that these ancient shallow - water animals may have actually evolved from mysterious - sea ascendent .
Moreover , when the researchers compared deep - ocean fossils with shallow - water fossils of the same age , they found significantly more biodiversity in the deep sea than in shallow sea for at least some of the radical of animals . This suggests that the mystifying sea can be more successful at sheltering beast from quenching than shallow coastal seas .
" However , we should not sham the deep ocean is racy against any man - made disturbance , " Thuy said . That would be a dangerous misunderstanding of our results , he allege .
The scientists detailed their findings online May 21 in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
