Discovery of the underwater lake that kills almost everything

Scientific expedition in the Gulf of Mexico

It’s been a year since the “Jacuzzi of despair” was discovered by the scientists of the organization Ocean Exploration Trust. A new sampling campaign was held this year to learn more about this hostile place. In 2015, the diving robot of the Nautilus boat explores a strange underwater phenomenon in the depths of the Gulf of Mexico: a salt lake, very salty (5 times the normal concentration), methane and Hydrogen sulphide which proves to be a poison highly toxic to almost all organisms, including man.

During this second expedition, scientists noticed that although many carcasses of crabs litter the perimeter, shrimps, mussels and some other species do not seem to suffer from the phenomenon. How does such organism survive in this inhospitable habitat ? This question is the main purpose of the research campaigns that try to understand how life can adapt to such extreme environments. One can even imagine that some planets could have similar ecosystems and that, in spite of this, life would develop.