Expedition Antarctica | Free Documentary

[Music] antarctica unbelievable unbearable and now a 50-day sea expedition attempts to crack its mystery uncovering the improbable creatures that somehow thrive at this merciless alien edge of our planet day one the government research vessel tongaroa embarks from wellington new zealand on a precarious 50-day 6 million dollar mission destination antarctica a voyage of potential discovery and definite danger just getting to the raw sea will tax the ship and crew navigating the mighty southern ocean and 460 kilometers of crushing sea ice [Music] in this international polar year tongaroa will join 17 other ships and a top to bottom census of antarctic marine life and andrew leachman is its captain the telephone directory of everything that's down there because it's never really been done but satellite charts show the worst icing condition in years even with tongaroa's 70 meter long reinforced hull this could be a mission impossible though he can hardly wait to get his hands on the strange scaly creatures from the sea floor marine biologist andrew stewart knows it'll be no dip in the ocean the ocean is a very difficult environment to study down here in the southern ocean everything is that much harder you've got to kit up like the michelin man to get out on deck everything takes so much more effort whatever happens the 44 scientists and crew know they'd better play well together because there's no turning back they certainly won't like toys the team has new gadgets new cameras cutting-edge science to help them check the health of the ocean has overfishing caused harm is global warming forcing a sea change the scientists aim to find out once they get past the seasickness ship's dr jenny visser takes her job very seriously tongaroa will sail well beyond the reach of the helicopter rescue if illness or injury strikes help will come by slow boat or not at all dr jenny's skills could mean the difference between life and death right how are we doing good just over here yep six days out the team spots its first iceberg see that it's on the right there that's good that's good a free-floating chunk of ice caved off an ice shelf this legendary menace of the high seas reveals only one-eighth of itself as it glides aimlessly and destructively through the water the team find it thrilling an ominous hint of the hazards that lie ahead [Music] tongaroa is a fisheries research vessel no icebreaker and these small icebergs called growlers seem to be ganging up on the ship obviously we're um there's icebergs around it's burgundy water there's a few growls about we're heading south so i'm not certain exactly where i'm going to go i want to go and have a look and just have a feel for the terrain and so which way we can work our way through the ice to the rush sea captain leachman navigates these waters knowing others have attempted and failed you're in the footsteps of scotland shackleton is a challenge it's a real challenging thing for any ship's captain to take a ship down there in 1914 certainly shackleton's ship endurance became trapped in sea ice [Music] he and his crew spent a grueling winter battling the elements until the ice ultimately crushed and sunk the ship it's an epic of antarctic survival and it replayed in 2007 when ice engulfed the tour ship explorer in antarctic waters read the history and you'll know i am very careful because i know the rules the rules are simple never underestimate the ice and never turn your back on it satellite ice charts and reports from other ships will help guide him to the thinnest parts of the pack ice head scientist stu henchett worries about the encroaching ice barrier scuttling their plans but he trusts the captain there was quite a bit of a concern whether we would in fact be able to get into the rossi and achieve some of our objectives we envisaged probably taking two maybe three days to break through the pack ice in into the open waters of the ross sea itself the tongaroa may not be an icebreaker but the ice doesn't know it the shark prowl makes short work of it for now [Applause] off the stern the minky whale fine sanctuary scarfing down a hearty meal of krill among the ice chunks minkies can grow nearly nine meters positively puny compared to their blue whale cousins who can stretch to more than three times that size and that means an awful lot of krill to sustain a healthy population of whales penguins and seals especially the crab eater seals who also make their home on the shifting ice slurping down krill not crabs each year they eat about 25 times their body weight and krill filtered through their interlocking strainer-like teeth [Music] and these ever popular emperors of antarctica will pass the dark and brutal winter by mating they'll brave temperatures lower than -40 to lay eggs and raise their chicks the work these scientists do down here could help all these animals survive an uncertain future each night three hours of darkness brings new danger to the ice clogged waters safety depends on constant vigilance and this is only summer ice in the winter tongaroa wouldn't stand a chance [Music] right how are we doing let's look at last the ship breaks free by now tongaroa has spent 10 days at sea nearly four of them packed in ice wind and currents keep this part of the raw sea ice free in summer voyage leader john mitchell can breathe a little easier but experience tells him he hasn't seen the last of it that's always going to get in the way regardless what you do even on the best ice shoes you still get ice and it's still it's always where you want to be while the sea stays calm and free of ice the team prepares to plunge into an alien world [Music] for the first time these scientists will get to see what's down there courtesy of the deep towed imaging system they call details custom made for this type of deep sea exploration its high definition and stills cameras will act as a team's eyes in this high-pressure low-light environment [Music] okay we're ready to go and we're in position going ready no one has actually field tested the unit in such icy conditions before too late to think about that now like an explorer dispatched to a foreign world the imaging system begins its fact-finding mission the scientists hold their breath uh yeah this is the drive we are on channel 15 mate nobody really knows what's down here at last the ocean floor andrew could you just hop here for a moment [Music] to a marine biologist this is big like the first moonwalk as the live video images come up from the seabed the scientists log what they see and strain to find things they've never seen before [Music] they will crawl for an hour the length of a videotape giving the team their first tantalizing image of polar marine life in perpetual night time there's quite a lot of fragments of things here in there now that they've seen the creatures on the video they want to get their hands on them for that they'll need to troll with nets not cameras they approach trawling systematically first they'll trawl the bottom of the ocean sweeping across the floor to sample the bottom dwellers then they'll trawl at mid-level collecting samples of free swimming fish then skimming the surface for plankton they'll also use specialized equipment to sample water and mud from directly beneath the ship to study its microbes and chemical makeup as a commercial fishing practice bottom trawling dredges a worldwide controversy because of damage to the seabed science however takes a gentler approach you know we have limited our trolls uh to about 15 or 20 minutes bottom time the actual percentage of the total seabed area impacted by the bottom trawl is very small [Music] but the bottom fault doesn't even last 15 minutes before the rough seabed forces the crew to pull the net that's the cue for american marine biologist christopher jones to grab his gear this will be exciting the anticipation makes the scientists forget all about the minus 10 degrees celsius conditions and andrew stewart thinks all of his christmases have come at once it's going to be a bit like santa claus coming up the stern ramp there we don't know what's going to be in that sack could be a pair of socks or it could be a new bike who knows now this is good we've got all sorts of things in here santa must be pleased with christopher jones there's a big desausticus a big beautiful desausticus moss and i that's what we're looking for we got a good one here destasticus mossani the antarctic tooth fish one of the giants of the marine ecosystem on the menu it goes by chilean sea bass and it's harvested by the thousands if it disappears from the ocean more than dinner's at stake a nice diverse catch here it could mean an ecosystem on the brink of collapse this is the fish that is probably the most economically important uh species that's being caught by the commercial fishery in the southern ocean this is a fine specimen here of an antarctic tooth fish this big guy tells the crew that all's well down below the undersea camera built up the team's expectations about what they might collect yes the bottom tron that delivers on its promise sponges among the most primitive sea animals have no nervous or digestive systems they feed by filtering water through their pores the troll brought up an exotic specimen that weaves its body out of silica that's a hexagonaled sponge which is also known as a glass sponge and a very slow growing very irritating if you get any of the spicules on you and santa's sack has delivered a special gift for andrew snailfish fantastic snailfish are poorly understood and andrew may have found a new species down to the lab [Music] this is why i came to antarctica seeing things like this it's just beyond words we now have whole families of fishes that are found nowhere else in the world except in the southern ocean and these are fascinating animals these are the ice fishes temperatures above five degrees celsius are too hot for them and in fact a lethal for them the sea holds a dizzying variety of fish to baffle and thrill marine biologists nature even saw fit to make about 115 species of andrew's snailfish i have to look at such features as the shape of the teeth the jaws the shape of the gill rakers as well as counts of the vertebrae counter the dorsal and anal fin rays then along comes the kind of discovery that blows biologists out of the water now i have no idea which species this is at the moment that colour pattern on the fins is like nothing i've ever seen before most scientists hope to find something truly new but only a few actually accomplish it andrew might have discovered yet another new species making him the first human to lay eyes on this creature that's evolved over millions of years though cut short this first troll offers something for everyone i'm very happy with the first draw yeah we only had um 10 minutes on the bottom uh and there was some quite rough ground so we had to haul early but um yeah it looks looks very good for the first one scientists have catalogued about 135 species of fish from the largely unexplored ross seed on this expedition the team intends to add a new chapter to this antarctic fish story in the depths of the ship the team studies the fish finder to locate schools of small fish and krill the foundation of the elaborate food chain since big fish depend on little fish the scientists want to check their health that means another fishing expedition yeah hi andrew it's richard here down the acoustic slab we're seeing a bit of a mark on our standard down here we're quite interested in doing a midwater trawl the target spotted the nets deploy but as the net closes in on the fish the weather closes in on the ship unlike the previous crawl this monster midwater net will crawl between surface and the sea bottom scooping up the free swimming fish this is the bit that's going into the trawl and all these little red tick marks through here that tells us we're catching fish so everything's looking good isn't it andrew it is indeed menacing clouds gather on the horizon a sudden turn into polar weather can endanger equipment and anyone caught on deck okay we'll hold it down all right coming up there she comes the wind from the approaching front hits suddenly before they can get the net on board a full gale sends its fury oh and now hold it now with the stern ramp open the angry seat floods the deck waves crashing over the stern can easily sweep a crew member into the icy churning sea where the cold shot can kill in three minutes but the crew won't abandon the catch the net overflows with silverfish a very healthy sign it's um one of the most abundant species in the ross seed it's eaten by quite a lot of species so it's important to the food chain among the mass of silverfish andrew spies a lethal predator most likely feeding when sneered what's the name of that again andrew daggertooth a dagger wonder what was called that stick your finger in his mouth this striking find wields a mean set of choppers it's pretty fresh it comes up underneath like that bites down the chomp reverses and it severs the spinal cord it's paralyzing that fish turned around the ferocious storm puts a halt to the science program the ship slows down to ride it out nature runs the showdown and the team battens down the hatches isn't fun you know despite the boats pitching and rolling life goes on a well-stocked galley serves those who could still manage to keep the food down whatever the sea throws at them the team takes in stride though striding in heavy swell does take some practice [Music] god at last the storm passes costing the crew a day and a half's sampling you might get caught up in the silence microbiologist julie hall's work involves checking the health of the southern ocean's tiniest residents [Music] this device collects her water samples [Music] she can remotely open and close the sampling bottles at various depths from the seabed to the surface [Music] once the samples break the surface the team rushes to retrieve them without spilling a drop as you can see it's a difficult and dangerous operation and the get correct be really careful bring it on board in such rough and slippery conditions so we're going to pull around into the garage so we're out of the wind with the sampling and then we'll start taking the samples off the bottles [Music] she wants to see if increased greenhouse gases in the ocean have any effect on life down here she'll measure chemicals water temperature and bacteria in the sea we've got the water from that coming out and going in about 10 different directions for analysis of nutrients in the water chlorophyll phytoplankton we're also looking at viruses the microzooplankton those very very tiny zooplankton her work in this far off sea may have global implications but julie's about to feel the full weight of her isolation from the world back home [Music] just two weeks into the mission captain leachman receives an urgent satellite phone call from the new zealand police early morning um i was called to the bridge and the the sergeant in matamata said look we've got some bad news here we got a doctor julie hall aboard and i said yes he said well unfortunately her husband's been killed in a gliding axe [Music] anyway what i did do is got julie up and sat her down it was my duty to inform her and it's a very very difficult thing to do so i'm awfully sorry um i've got some bad news and your husband's been killed julie's husband dr trevor adkins was also a scientist he died while competing in a gliding competition he was competing in the new zealand championships and he'd had an accident very close to the airfield and had been killed instantly on impact at the site i explained that i would do everything in my power to get a home but the difficulty of course of being in isolating and isolated where we were there's no guarantee we could get her off fickle weather and enormous distances have conspired against julie by now tongaroa has sailed well beyond reach of any helicopter and too far out to turn around if julie has any hope of getting home captain leachman must find a nearby ship able to make the journey i had to think about my own situation how i felt about things uh how any decision impacted on others back in new zealand but also the impact me leaving would have on the science and the people around me [Music] with the weather deteriorating and the nearest ship at least three days away julie has to make an immediate decision stay with the mission or return home to her family [Music] and as it turned out i made the decision not to leave she decided that really she was going home to an empty house and she didn't want to go out she was happy where she was the strongest reaction of why aren't you coming home came from people who really didn't understand the isolation and also not really the situation on the ship in terms of being surrounded by close colleagues who were very supportive as they edge their way along the ross ice shelf the wind kicks up an icy spray just another summer day in the antarctic temperature plunges to minus 14 celsius and spray freezes on contact the next deep towed imaging deployment gets put on hold much to the crew's relief that is the life of a sailor everything frozen including us and the forecast gets even more chilling okay this satellite image that just came in this morning to show us the current state of play the southern raw sea is refreezing faster than expected already covering several of their planned sampling stations it could be arduous if the southerly wind continues the whole thing is going to freeze up and it'll be like operating in fresh neck concrete so it's not good we won't really do much sampling if those conditions prevail with the water temperature down to minus 1.8 celsius the sea starts to freeze in a spectacular if alarming display it stretches to the horizon in every direction and can potentially strand the ship don't like it when it's really thick i really don't i'm always fat and i'll do a shackleton the pancake ice has begun heralding one of the planet's greatest annual displays the freezing of seas around antarctica winter the event effectively doubles the size of the continent the science leaders call an emergency strategy meeting good morning good morning i think the general consensus is now that we don't go much further east than here which is probably a good idea because looking out the window they agreed to continue their work here as long as they can before the ocean freezes solid because of the southernmost extremity of our activities we're gonna do adidas toe and then we will proceed northwest it's like fishing in a margarita [Music] the slushy turmoil on the surface hides the calm waters below as antarctica began its deep freeze over 30 million years ago life here evolved and flourished [Music] now comes a new challenge despite the pristine nature of this remote ocean the imaging system shows human intruders the stills camera snaps a beer bottle and commercial fishing activity leaves its mark in the form of a trawler's long line when the weather allows commercial trawlers drop their deadly long lines here to catch tooth fish the so-called sea bass this healthy specimen means more than tonight's dinner special sizeable tooth fish it's the poster child for good fishing management elsewhere in the southern seas indiscriminate practices have dangerously depleted its relative the patagonian tooth fish but stricter antarctic regulations allow us to have our fish and eat it too christopher jones hopes it stays that way it's the the one fish that human beings are having the greatest impact on we're okay now but we have to be very very cautious if we decide to to increase the catch this whopper weighs an incredible 56.8 kilograms and still only half the size these mighty fish can grow in one recent summer the longliners relieve the raw sea of three thousand tons of them while tongaroa has only caught five for research there may still be plenty of fish in the sea but these scientists are always chasing the one that got away besides catching a mammoth tooth fish the team has also collected some of its favorite food including the glacial squid that's a lovely specimen of the glacial squid very nice condition indeed for a very delicate squid squid and octopus fragile members of the rich and diverse cephalopod family live in every climate and at every depth they may look bizarre but they boast the biggest brains among the invertebrates like any spineless creature a squid's first instinct is to hide but a cornered one has some potent weapons in its armory like this parrot-like beet that can deliver a nasty peck or these lethal hooks used for snaring prey but right now darren stevens had snared his catch of the day an incredibly rare deep water octopus this is a lovely specimen of store toothis it's another one of the dumbo octopus and a very gelatinous individual only a handful of these octopuses have ever been found anywhere and this is the first intact one caught in the ross sea the fact that it came out of the net 100 percent intact makes it even more remarkable so far darren has collected 26 species of squid and octopus but he yearns for the big one this baby colossal squid found only in antarctic waters can grow up to an amazing four meters long darren hopes to meet its mother overnight the imaging system shows the seabed too rocky for the bottom trawl net the situation calls for the smaller more robust beam trawl instead of the steel doors a large wooden beam props open the mouth of the net here we go as the net pulls in the team eagerly awaits its catch from 1600 meters down it feels like they've hooked the big one perhaps it's darren's colossal squid well yeah i heard santa go warm right there not a squid but colossal all the same it looks like we might have done a little bit more geologic sampling studying the latest satellite charts captain leitchman finds a pathway through the ice barrier if they leave her right away at some stage we'll need to escape from this area through this ice bridge and away to the north the way to deal with encroaching ice is to head for warmer waters and in the southern hemisphere that only means one thing go north young man going north as tongaroa steams north into deeper water julie deploys a multiple opening and closing net or mach ness each tentacle of this mochness monster has snatched plankton and krill from various depths this is a very important mochness sample for us that's come from 3 400 metres it's the deepest one we've ever done along with the microscopic animals known as zooplankton lisa spies a tiny deep sea squid a little gift for darren the squid guy is darren up there karen yeah tell him we've got a present for him in the plankton lab it's me beautiful he's in very good condition you know we've found some fascinating things and quite often they're bright red which is really cool he's great and very much still alive what have you got for me my word that is gorgeous bathy too busy cola you've done very very well thank you as tungaroa nudges north into the sea ice the work in the plankton lab goes on in the mop nest net we collect some of the larger phytoplankton in there and sometimes it's come up literally looking like pea soap with those larger phytoplankton that get caught in the net i'm amazed the amount of life in here it certainly looks quite productive a lot more productive than i'd imagined for antarctic waters but i guess something's got to be there to feed the krill which live down here the mid-troll net hold up plenty of krill and chris gets the smelly job of weighing and measuring every last one of them it's the only way to calculate how many of these crucial crustaceans inhabit the ross sea krill really drive most of the ecosystem that is all the land-based predators the penguins the seals the birds most of the fish species whales they're all highly dependent on krill the arrival of two humpbacks delights the team [Music] they've come for the krill of course gorging themselves before migrating back to the breeding grounds in the pacific this is great it couldn't be any better the uh the sun is shining and it's just a beautiful day the ice is right behind those whales [Music] emperor penguins also come for the all-you-can-eat buffet after laying their eggs in a dead of winter the females complete an arduous trek from open water to feed the chicks and krill one of the lowest lengths in the food chain becomes a meal fit for an emperor [Music] 33 days into the expedition tongaroa breaks into open water again on the horizon loom scott island and haggett's pillar these insignificant looking rocks are actually the top of a seamount a volcanic undersea mountain thrust from the bottom of the ocean 4 000 meters below a deep region known as the abyssal seabed yeah these ones are more dispersed malcolm clark studies these bedrock communities that thrive on dramatically steep slopes some creatures prefer a bed with more support they opt to live on the rocky seamount instead of the posh seabed so animals that need to attach to something really hard like like corals sponges they're able to latch on and again survive where the the soft sediment of the abyssal plains doesn't enable them to survive the team decides to drop in on the seamount community using the beam troll but the seamount is not accepting visitors up comes nothing but the tangled cables of the broken troll the wooden beam is smashed in two from the adidas has looked pretty good so uh with the goan is just one of the risks we take they need to repair it or they're dead in the water the crew is optimistic it's not going to take long i mean if you give us an hour they cut out the tangled wire and splice it back together and where would a sailor be without his knots practicing before long they're back in business [Music] having braved ice storms broken equipment and rough seas for almost two months the team braces itself for the most high pressure assignment of all they will delve 3 500 meters into the abyssal plane a depth almost as high as the swiss alps to prepare for the mission team members perform an exacting scientific endeavor decorating polystyrene cups because they've been made and compressed with air when we put them down to the deep they'll hopefully compress and get smaller and smaller and smaller and eventually we hope they'll turn out basically like symbols it will endure 300 times more pressure than we experience every day [Music] suddenly the abyssal plane reveals itself it looks barren like the surface of mars but a closer look reveals life no one has ever witnessed sites like these in antarctica before [Music] then something goes horribly wrong you just lost the video yeah we just noticed that now we're just uh wondering what's going on it could be a minor malfunction or a catastrophic failure it just concerns me when you get to that depth it suddenly goes you sort of think oh god that question hasn't broken the seal or something [Music] they haul the apparatus back up you can see the problem right away oh dear dripping water that's not supposed to happen yeah what's happened is the uh the pressure has been too great for the uh the glass and the bottom and it's got a hairline crack across it remarkably the camera continued to operate allowing chas marriott to replay its destruction you can see our cracks started to form across the glass lens on the front of the housing and as we scroll through the frames you can see water starting to seep into the housing it's these blurry bits here and slowly filling up the bottom of the housing and the lens of water evens out across the glass you can still see all the photos quite clearly again [Music] for the rest of the team the experiment is a crushing success 300 atmospheres of pressure bearing down equally on all sides have miniaturized them without damage even the illustrations in lettering remain in perfect miniature [Music] the team also take the opportunity to crawl the bottom having set up more than 5 000 meters of the repaired cable into the seat [Music] the bean crawl finally comes aboard at 2 am and after 6 hours of waiting the team gets its reward 12 buckets of mud and one single fish but in this mud lies many delectable delights like this sea cucumber it's hard to see where's front and back that would be it i guess another oral appendage he's wagging his tail though now if this doesn't demonstrate all the glamour of marine biology nothing does karine has cleaned up her sea cucumber for a better look this is the the back side of it and the the front of it is clearly the other side which has got these these oral tentacles [Music] then kareem finds an even more curious specimen it has something quite interesting at the front which uh sort of likened it a little bit too is a hippopotamus we don't know how many uh down there we don't know how common this is i have never seen anything like this before sea cucumbers are the ocean's vacuum cleaners walking along the bottom sucking nutrients out of the mud they eat the video enables the scientists to observe them in all their sluggish action scientists recognize about 1200 species of sea cucumbers none of them very attractive except maybe to a marine biologist but as the expedition winds down they'll encounter creatures strange by any standard [Music] 44 days into the voyage and the last day of sampling has arrived it's also andrew's 50th birthday the team has stayed up late to prepare a surprise [Music] they've conducted 312 sampling deployments at 39 different stations yet still a sense of expectation grips them this is the last bottom trawl of the cruise the video shows parasites attached to deep sea rattail fish the scientists hope the troll snares one after a long day's wait andrew and the others get to see the last net come in with deep trolls they've come to expect some strange specimens they are not disappointed these abyssal fish have evolved to cope with the crushing pressure down below but when they're pulled to the surface their guts blow up like a balloon as they've come up the pressure's caused their swim bladders to expand and blow out their mouths unfortunately it doesn't do them much good and the fish with its horrifying host has turned up in the net one of these big parasites right here on the rat tail you can see that thing it's got a tube part of it goes in well down into the body cavity today andrew receives a birthday gift only a biologist could love an ambush predator with a mouth of needle sharp teeth and the scientific name for this one is kali named after the hindu goddess of destruction these fish have a remarkable ability to swallow prey much much larger than themselves and the whole stomach area just unzips and expands this is just a great find it's the first find for this expedition first record of this family in the ross sea as the mission winds down the scientists log the last of the specimens this snapshot of antarctic biodiversity will be compared with the results of expeditions to come [Music] as they head back to new zealand captain leachman reflects on tongaroa's 7 000 nautical mile journey through one of the most challenging oceans on earth [Music] once you've had a touch of it and seen the visibility you see 200 miles see mount melbourne pink in them in the midnight sun oh i mean there's no words can't describe just the beauty of it it's wonderful and would he go again oh of course for julie hall the life she's coming back to is not the one she left but she has no doubt that the painful choice she made was the right one i felt that he would have wanted me to stay and finish the program that i've put so much time and energy into developing been planning this for over two years so to walk away would have been very difficult andrew stewart and the fish team scored 88 different fish species at least five are thought to be new to science but only a small fraction of what scientists believe is still out there i think that what we have already retrieved from the southern ocean has been incredible i think in many ways will barely scratch the surface as these scientists return home they're proud that their 50 days aboard tongaroa have made this unfathomable world a little more knowable [Music] you

Channel: Free Documentary

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Keywords: Free Documentary, Documentaries, Full documentary, HD documentary, documentary - topic, documentary (tv genre), geology, geology documentary, antartica, Antarctica, antarctica cruise, climate, climate documentary, climate change, travel antarctica, antarctica climate change, south pole, south pole travel, south pole documentary, antarctic station, antarctica station tour, Antarctic, Fyodorov, ice breaker, marine scientists, marine documentary

Id: kZ_4h9UA7Uo

Length: 50min 17sec (3017 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 13 2020