Deep blue wonder

As marine resources come under increasing human pressure from fishing, global warming, pollution and other changes, a group of researchers is increasing efforts to chart the catalogue of species, many of which are currently unknown to science, that inhabit marine environments little known to man. The survey of the world's oceans has so far pinpointed 38,000 marine species — and identified new fish at the rate of two a week. The Census of Marine Life, a concerted effort by hundreds of scientists from more than 70 nations, is in effect the first hi-tech inventory of life at sea. Oceans cover 70 per cent of the globe but marine scientists have been pointing out for years that the surface of Venus has been better mapped than the world under the oceans. The latest 'end of term report' by the census scientists assembles data from more than 5.2 million new and existing records, and maps the distribution of the 38,000 species. Details of the survey were unveiled at a meeting in Hamburg last month. sub-Saharan Africa are to form nine new regional networks to create a new 'information seaway'. But the worldwide bid to probe life in the seas has hardly begun. " We have barely skimmed the surface, " said Frederick Grassle, of Rutgers University, who chairs the international scientific steering committee of the census. One of the first tasks in supporting biodiversity is to catalogue it. A large international team of marine scientists has been doing just that for the planet's least known communities under growing threat from human activities. Nigel Williams reports. Bush life: The tube worm, Lamellibranchia luynesi, and its bacterial symbionts, live on sulphide produced by the anaerobic oxidation of oil and gas. Many oil and gas seeps in the Gulf of Mexico feature dozens of dense, bush-like aggregations of such worms. This tube-worm bush shows the red gill plumes of several worms.