Scientists find March 11 Japanese quake tore deep fissures in the ocean floor

August 21, 2011 –Tokyo, Japan (Reuters) – Japanese scientists say the March 11 magnitude-9 earthquake created fissures on the ocean floor across the region, destroying the deep sea eco-system. Researchers at Japan’s Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology said they found a number of fissures, some of them as wide as one metre (3.3 feet) during their surveys at the 5,000-metre (3.1-mile) deep-sea banks near the quake-hit Sendai City, Miyagi Prefecture, earlier this month. The team also found that the sea organism they used to observe across the region during their past researches were no longer there after the mega-earthquake and tsunami caused underwater mud-slides and changed the composition of the soil. “The March 11 earthquake destroyed the ocean floor with fissures and mud slides. We discovered that the deep sea organisms which used to be there were totally eliminated or replaced by new species,” said ocean biologist Katsunori Fujikura. What the team also found inside the fissure were white, gelatine-like deposits; clods of bacteria that react with methane gas to seep through the cracks of the ground. Fujikura said the bacteria could irreversibly damage the deep sea eco-system as they produce toxic substances, making the sea bed inhabitable for other organisms. “The bacteria produce hydrogen sulphite, which is toxic for other organisms, so, they can no longer live there,” said Fujikura. He also said long-term research is needed to figure out whether the ocean floor’s ecological system can be revived. –Weather Network

contribution by GMW