There are swarms of little shrimp-like creatures in a newly discovered underwater environment beneath a large ice shelf in the middle of the ocean.
500 metres below the ice in a suspected estuary, a team of scientists from New Zealand discovered the ecosystems.
The National Institute of Water and Atmospherics (Niwa) and Geological and Nuclear Sciences received funding to investigate what role the estuary could play in the melting of the ice-shelf.
When they drilled down through the ice and into the river, their camera was swarmed by tiny crustaceans from the same family as lobsters, crabs and mites.
"For a while, we thought something was wrong with the camera, but when the focus improved, we saw a swarm of arthropods around 5mm in size."
We have done other parts of the ice shelf and thought we had a handle on things, but this time it was different.
Stevens said that there was an element of discovery on the expedition.
Having all those animals swimming around our equipment means that there is an important environment there.
The leader of the project, Huw Horgan from Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington, was the first to see the estuary.
The network of hidden freshwater lakes and rivers below the ice sheets has been known to researchers for some time.
Being the first to enter a hidden world was what it was like to observe the river.
Lab researchers would look at what makes the water unique while instruments were left in the river to observe its behavior.
The mooring had just been put in place a few days before the volcano erupted. The instruments of the team detected a change in pressure as the waves came in.
The effects of the eruption made Stevens think about how connected the planet is. There are real-time influences from events that felt worlds away here. It was amazing.
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