text: CLOSE Greenpeace International released this submarine video of life along the Antarctic seafloor, which previously had never been visited by humans. Greenpeace is campaigning to protect the area with the world's largest ocean sanctuary. USA TODAY 
   
   The international team of researchers will spend 3 weeks on board the research ship RRS James Clark Ross. (Photo: British Antarctic Survey) 
   
   Scientists are about to explore a part of the world that's been hidden for 120,000 years. 
   
   A team of researchers, led by the British Antarctic Survey, is heading to Antarctica this week to investigate a mysterious marine ecosystem that’s been hidden underneath an Antarctic ice shelf for tens of thousands of years. 
   
   The ecosystem was suddenly uncovered when a massive iceberg sheared off from the Larsen Ice Shelf last July. The 1 trillion-ton iceberg, known as A-68, was twice of the volume of Lake Erie when it broke off. 
   
   The scientists will travel by ship to collect animal and plant samples from the newly exposed seabed, which covers an area of around 2,200 square miles. They will be in the area about three weeks. 
   
   “The calving of A-68 provides us with a unique opportunity to study marine life as it responds to a dramatic environmental change," said expedition leader Katrin Linse from the British Antarctic Survey 
   
   They need to get there in a hurry: "It’s important we get there quickly before the undersea environment changes as sunlight enters the water and new species begin to colonize," she said. 
   
   More: Massive iceberg nearly the size of Delaware breaks off Antarctica 
   
   "We’ve put together a team with a wide range of scientific skills so that we can collect as much information as possible in a short time," Linse added. "It’s very exciting.” 
   
   The team will investigate the area previously under the ice shelf by collecting seafloor animals, microbes, plankton, sediments and water samples. Their findings will provide a snapshot of what life under the ice shelf was like, so that changes to the ecosystem can be tracked. 
   
   When the iceberg calved off last year, it fundamentally changed the landscape of the Antarctic Peninsula. The calving reduced the size of the ice shelf by some 12%. 
   
   The Antarctic seafloor is like a visit to an alien world: A recent visit from a Greenpeace submarine to the seafloor of the Antarctic Ocean revealed a stunning underwater world that was "carpeted with life." 
   
   More: Undersea cruise: Humanity's first visit to the Antarctic seafloor finds it 'carpeted with life' 
   
   David Vaughan, science director of the survey, said “the calving of A-68 offers a new and unprecedented opportunity to establish an interdisciplinary scientific research program in this climate sensitive region. Now is the time to address fundamental questions about the sustainability of polar continental shelves under climate change." 
   
   “We need to be bold on this one," Vaughan said. "Larsen C is a long way south and there’s lots of sea ice in the area, but this is important science, so we will try our best to get the team where they need to be.” 
   
   Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2nWXoFT ||||| When A-68, a trillion-ton iceberg the size of Delaware (or ten Madrids or two Luxembourgs, whatever you want to call it), parted ways with the Antarctic Larsen-C ice shelf in the summer of 2017, it was the largest recorded calving in history. 
   
   The break reduced Larsen-C to its smallest size in recorded history. Though the event can’t be directly attributed to climate change, it is suspicious that the ice receded the fastest it had in years in the months preceding the final break during the dead of winter, when temperatures would normally be their lowest. 
   
   Without the protection of the A-68’s ice, almost 3,600 sq miles (6,000 km) of Antarctic ocean water are now exposed to sunlight and accessible for the first time in more than 120,000 years. Today (Feb. 14), a team of researchers led by the British Antarctic Survey will head down to Antarctica to prepare for a three-week mission starting Feb. 21 to explore a 2,200 sq mile portion of the newly accessible region. 
   
   The team plans to make observations at all levels, taking notes on the marine mammals and birds that have started swimming near the surface, and the microbes and other lifeforms lurking on the seafloor. Cameras and sleds will collect deep-water video footage and scoop up samples of other tiny animals that have made their homes in frigid waters. 
   
   Any ocean research is difficult because of the logistics required getting personnel and gear out on the water. Getting to this region of Antarctica will be particularly treacherous. Temperatures average around 15°F (-9°C), and the water is filled with huge chunks of ice. But it’s necessary work. “It’s important we get there quickly before the undersea environment changes as sunlight enters the water and new species begin to colonize,” Katrin Linse, the marine biologist leading the expedition, said in a British Antarctic Survey press release. 
   
   USA Today compares these waters to exploring an alien world, and for good reason—scientists have no idea what kinds of creatures can survive under the protection of an ice shelf, because the depths have been impossible to reach. The only clues they have to go on are from a recent Greenpeace submarine mission that showed the sea floor was “carpeted with life.” This research saw rare squid, starfish, and more that probably won’t survive when the waters change with their new exposure to surface light and different species that may settle into the new marine real estate. 
   
   The team has 21 days on the research ship before the need to return home. This area is protected under an international agreement called the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), which allows researchers to visit to collect information about newly exposed ocean from calved icebergs. 
   
   The hope is the team will gain deeper insight into the life that lives in frigid Antarctic waters—and how to protect it if it become threatened by further ice breaks and melting sea ice. ||||| British Antarctic Survey is trying to reach a newly revealed ecosystem that had been hidden for 120,000 years below the Larsen C ice shelf 
   
   A team of international scientists is due to set off for the world’s biggest iceberg on Wednesday, fighting huge waves and the encroaching Antarctic winter, in a mission aiming to answer fundamental questions about the impact of climate change in the polar regions. 
   
   
   
   The scientists, led by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), are trying to reach a newly revealed ecosystem that had been hidden for 120,000 years below the Larsen C ice shelf on the Antarctic peninsula. 
   
   In July last year, part of the Larsen C ice shelf calved away, forming a huge iceberg - A68 - which is four times bigger than London, and revealing life beneath for the first time. 
   
   Now scientists say it is a race against time to explore these new ecosystems before they are transformed by exposure to the light. 
   
   Marine biologist Dr Katrin Linse from the BAS is leading the mission which sets off on a voyage across the Southern Ocean from the Falklands Islands on Wednesday. They expect to reach the iceberg within a week. 
   
   “The calving of A68 provides us with a unique opportunity to study marine life as it responds to a dramatic environmental change,” she said. “It’s important we get there quickly before the undersea environment changes as sunlight enters the water and new species begin to colonise … It’s very exciting.” 
   
   Prof David Vaughan, science director at BAS, said: “We need to be bold on this one. Larsen C is a long way south and there’s lots of sea ice in the area, but this is important science, so we will try our best to get the team where they need to be.” 
   
   
   
   He said climate change had already affected the seas around Antarctica and is warming some coastal waters. 
   
   “Future warming may make some habitats warm. Where these habitats support unique species that are adapted to love the cold and not the warm, those species are going to either move or die. How fast species can disperse, and how fast ecosystems can colonise new areas, is key to understanding where the Antarctic is likely to be resilient, and where it is vulnerable.” 
   
   Last week the Guardian printed the first images of creatures found in a previously unexplored region of the Antarctic seabed, taken during a Greenpeace research expedition to the Antarctic which is part of a wider campaign to turn a huge section of the region into the world’s biggest ocean sanctuary. 
   
   Share your questions for scientists aboard an Antarctic expedition Read more 
   
   Speaking onboard the Greenpeaceship Arctic Sunrise, the group’s head of oceans, Will McCallum, said there was “still so much left to learn about ocean life here in the Antarctic”. 
   
   “From hidden ecosystems revealed by calving icebergs, to our research missions to the seafloor which have found an abundance of rare and vulnerable species - this place is bursting with life and a vast Antarctic Ocean sanctuary would help us protect it in all its forms.” 
   
   
   
   There is growing concern about the possible impact of climate change in the Antarctic. 
   
   
   
   Earlier this month, a report revealed that melting ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica are speeding up the already fast pace of sea level rise. 
   
   The research published by the National Academies of Sciences said, at the current rate, the world’s oceans will be on average at least 60cm (2ft) higher by the end of the century. 
   
   However it found that the process is accelerating, and more than three-quarters of the acceleration since 1993 is due to melting ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, the study shows. 
   
   Experts say the area around the Antarctic peninsula has seen widespread ice shelf decay and collapse in recent decades, leading to “glacier acceleration” and increased discharge of ice from the Antarctic continent into the sea. 
   
   However scientists are wary of attributing the calving of the Larsen C iceberg directly to global warming. 
   
   Adrian Luckman, professor of glaciology at Swansea University and leader of a project studying the state of the ice shelf, said: “Whilst the Larsen C ice shelf has reduced in area since records began, suggesting that over the long-term the environment of the Antarctic peninsula is becoming less able to support ice shelves, we have no evidence to link this particular calving event to changing conditions. Iceberg calving is a natural part of the ice shelf cycle and, whilst large, the calving of A68 is not unprecedented.”
target: – When an iceberg the size of Delaware separated from the Larsen C ice shelf last July, it uncovered an Antarctic marine habitat that had been hidden from the rest of the world for over 120,000 years, Quartz reports. Now scientists are racing to study the 3,600-square-mile ecosystem before it's forever changed by its sudden exposure to sunlight. "The calving of A-68 provides us with a unique opportunity to study marine life as it responds to a dramatic environmental change," marine biologist Dr. Katrin Linse tells the Guardian. A-68 is the trillion-ton iceberg—the largest in the world—that broke away from the ice shelf last summer. Linse says it's a "very exciting" opportunity for scientists, but they have to hurry because new species will quickly enter the ecosystem now that it has been exposed to sunlight, USA Today reports. British Antarctic Survey scientists led by Linse were scheduled to arrive in Antarctica on Wednesday. Over the next three weeks they'll explore 2,200 square miles of the newly exposed area while observing marine mammals and birds near the surface and taking samples of microbes and other life at the seafloor. It won't be easy. The average temperature in the area is 15 degrees, and it's full of large hunks of sea ice. But David Vaughan, science director at the British Antarctic Survey, says studying the area is important for learning about the potential impacts of climate change on Antarctica. "How fast species can disperse, and how fast ecosystems can colonize new areas, is key to understanding where the Antarctic is likely to be resilient, and where it is vulnerable," he tells the Guardian. (This Antarctic explorer turned back, but his decision came too late.)