Cherisse Du Preez and her fellow scientists had never seen anything like it.
The underwater volcano about 250 kilometres off Vancouver Island was the biggest ever found in Canadian waters.
Rising 2.5 kilometres from the ocean floor, it matched Mount Baker in height and covered an area similar in size to Greater Vancouver.
Equally stunning were the strange creatures populating the seamount鈥檚 unusual ecosystem 鈥� sponges and corals, sea cucumbers and sea stars.
In some ways, they resembled life forms you鈥檇 find in waters off Dallas Road or at Botanical Beach, except that these looked more like unusual cousins.
鈥淚t was an anomaly straight from the beginning,鈥� said Du Preez, a marine biologist with sa国际传媒鈥檚 Department of Fisheries and Oceans and part of the team that discovered the Explorer Seamount last summer.
鈥淭here were animals that we didn鈥檛 predict were going to be there. The environment was different.
鈥淲e found an ancient underwater city of sponges that we nicknamed Spongetopia. The thing is that scientists didn鈥檛 expect it was going to be there, so we were confused.鈥�
Their gut instincts were correct, however; they were seeing something for the first time. DNA testing of samples taken last year confirmed the discovery of species previously unknown to scientists.
Now, researchers are heading back to the Explorer Seamount for a more thorough investigation of the volcano and the mysterious creatures that live there.
A team of scientists from Fisheries and Oceans sa国际传媒 and their partners, the Nuu-chah-nulth Nations and Ocean Networks sa国际传媒, embarked Tuesday on a two-week expedition aboard the Canadian Coast Guard vessel John P. Tully.
The researchers plan to gather further samples and use a robot with high-resolution cameras, floodlights and sensors that can dive two kilometres to the ocean floor and send back real-time pictures of life on the underwater island.
One of the goals is to determine the size of Spongetopia, which is so big that scientists were unable to travel its length on their last visit in 2018.
Images will be livestreamed on Fisheries and Oceans鈥� website so people can watch along at home.
鈥淲hen we go down into the deep sea with cameras, when we turn on the lights, we鈥檙e seeing animals that scientists have never seen before,鈥� Du Preez told reporters at the Institute of Ocean Sciences in Sidney prior to departure. 鈥淲e鈥檙e seeing things that the general public doesn鈥檛 know exist in their water.
鈥淭hese animals, even though they鈥檙e removed from our lives, they鈥檙e already being impacted by us, so we need to start the protection process. So to inform the public, we share everything that we know, as soon as we know it, so that we can all kind of go on this mission together.鈥�
The Explorer Seamount sits at the centre of an ocean region that sa国际传媒 declared an Offshore Pacific Area of Interest in 2017 鈥� the first step toward creating a Marine Protected Area under sa国际传媒鈥檚 Oceans Act.
Tammy Norgard, chief scientist on the seamounts expedition, said it鈥檚 important to understand what鈥檚 in the area so it can be protected. 鈥淭he significance is that we鈥檙e getting out there and actually collecting research in Canadian waters with Canadian scientists, which is a pretty exciting thing,鈥� she said.
Kim Juniper, chief scientist at the University of Victoria鈥檚 Ocean Networks sa国际传媒, issued a statement stressing the importance of exploring the seamounts.
鈥淕athering data through expeditions like this advances the world鈥檚 understanding of ocean biodiversity hotspots at a critical time when governments, Indigenous peoples and conservation groups are working to formally protect vulnerable marine ecosystems.鈥�
