Beijing, Aug. 1 -- A group of Chinese researchers, in collaboration with international partners, have discovered the deepest, most extensive chemosynthesis-based communities of organisms known to exist on Earth during an expedition to the Kuril-Kamchatka Trench and the western Aleutian Trench, according to a recent research article published in Nature.
Hadal trenches are depressions in the seabed at depths of between 6,000 and 11,000 meters, occurring where the edge of one tectonic plate slides under another.
These locations- being some of the least explored and understood environments on Earth - have long been thought to harbour chemosynthesis-based communities of organisms.
These communities do not rely on sunlight, but inst...