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Mysterious deep-sea holes may be burrows of tiny shrimp-like creatures

Shrimp-like amphipods may be the architects of lines of holes at the bottom of the Bering Sea, which serve as a habitat to a wide range of fauna roaming the abyss

By Jake Buehler

7 April 2023

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Strange lines of holes in the deep sea have baffled scientists, but their makers may have been found

RV SONNE

Mysterious holes in the deep seafloor have popped up in the Bering Sea, and scientists think they have found their makers: small, shrimp-like crustaceans.

Between July and September 2022, a team of scientists embarked on the AleutBio expedition in the North Pacific. The aim was to study the biodiversity of the Aleutian Trench, a plunging, 7-kilometre-deep gash in the seafloor near Alaska. But the research vessel also sampled three locations in the nearby …

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