Discovered 'dead zone' at earthquake epicenter in South Asia

Five months after the tsunami in South Asia, scientists discovered a "dead zone" at the epicenter of the December 26, 2004 earthquake.

Tsunami photos from satellites

The "dead zone" was found after scientists made the "sightseeing" trip within 11 hours in an area at a depth of 4km from the Indian Ocean.

The investigation team was surprised when there was no sign of life discovered here. Around the epicenter of the earthquake caused a long crack of about 1,000 meters in the ocean floor, where there was a terrifying silence. The scientists' scuba diving car scanned the lights everywhere, but there were no signs of living creatures.

Professor Ron O'Dor, from Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia, Canada, one of the members of the Marine Life Survey project, said: "The deep sea is often the home of many living organisms. When you came here, you were expecting to see an area quickly filled with sea creatures, but that didn't happen.

According to Mr. O'Dor, normally, there is a living creature anywhere in the ocean floor. These can be fish, molluscs, corals, seaweeds, crustaceans and insects.

On December 26, 2004, a 9.3-magnitude earthquake created a 1,000-meter fault line on the seabed of western Sumatra island of Indonesia. This fracture caused sea water to be pushed up into a water column about 30-40m high, then collapsed to produce tsunamis.

According to Mr. O'Dor, the collapse of the water column has buried the food sources of organisms that lie on the ocean floor. "No one has come to the same area after a short time of disaster. It is possible to return everything to normal, it will take time. On the other hand, seawater is very cold at this depth, and life cannot multiply rapidly at a temperature of 4 degrees C, "he said.

The discovery of the "Dead Zone" at the epicenter of the earthquake, reflected in the report of the ambitious project, is to make a statistical list of all living things in the ocean, which lasted until 2010. About 1,700 Science from 73 countries participated in this project.

So far, they have counted nearly 2,000 animals of 21 species, including sharks, fish, birds, turtles, seals and sea lions. A number of new animals have also been discovered by the group in the deepest and most remote areas of the ocean, obscure.

Scientists believe that all marine organisms have been found to account for only about one tenth of the total number of species that exist in the ocean.