Unimaginable diversity of life discovered beneath Antarctic ice shelf

Deep beneath Antarctica's ice shelves, researchers have discovered dozens of life-forms thriving on a tiny patch of the seafloor —— an unprecedented level of species diversity for an environment that has never seen sunlight.

"If you had asked me three questions at the manuscript onset," said study co-author David Barnes, a marine biologist with the British Antarctic Survey, "How much richness of life will we find? Not much. How abundant is it going to be? Not very. What's it's growth going to be like? Very slow. And I would have been wrong on every point."