If he got the elephant seal onto the deck and it suddenly attacked and hurt someone, Xiang Yang would definitely be asking for trouble.
Seeing that Xiang Yang disagreed to bring the elephant seal on board, Fang Youqun sighed and had to give up the matter.
In fact, in Xiang Yang's opinion, Fang Youqun was worrying too much.
This little bit of wind and snow is nothing to the seals.
If they really encountered a blizzard that could cause trouble for the seals, Xiang Yang and his men would definitely be in even more trouble.
"Let's go. It's not safe to be on the boat in a blizzard. Let's set up camp on the ice first." Gao Chuang said to Xiang Yang.
Xiang Yang nodded.
In blizzard weather, the ambient temperature can drop to more than 70 degrees below zero, which is completely a world of ice and snow.
Steel can be frozen at temperatures of only minus 30 or 40 degrees Celsius, and minus 70 degrees Celsius is definitely not safe on a fishing boat.
On the contrary, on the ice, as long as the camp is built well, you can survive better.
The ice surface of Antarctica is very extensive, and it is almost everywhere covered with ice. It is difficult to see exposed rocks and soil. Even in deep places, the ice layer is more than 4,800 meters thick.
Xiang Yang drove the fishing boat and soon found a very large piece of floating ice.
This piece of floating ice is very thick, and its surface is covered with countless cracks like a mirror.
But Xiang Yang knew that no matter how many cracks this piece of ice had, it was still very safe and would never break, because it had existed for at least tens of millions of years.
"The ice layer here is more than 900 meters thick, and the total depth of the seabed is only more than 1,200 meters. It can be said to be a very solid piece of ice. We can stay on it with peace of mind." A crew member reported to Xiang Yang after obtaining data from the sonar detector.
Xiang Yang nodded, then asked, "Can you detect whether there are any living things in this ice?"
In Antarctica, there are living organisms inside some of the ice.
Scientists have discovered a mysterious biological community in Antarctica.
These organisms usually stay inside the ice and do not move.
However, those creatures are not active, yet they can maintain the characteristics of life activities. Experts speculate that they may be filtering seawater to fill their stomachs.
"Our instruments are not advanced enough to detect the interior of the ice," the crew member replied.
Xiang Yang nodded to show his understanding.
In order to find living creatures in the ice, we may have to drill wells.
Moreover, those mysterious species are very rare creatures. Even knowledgeable scientists find it difficult to find them, and most of these mysterious species are unknown new species.
Regarding these new species, Xiang Yang was just asking casually and didn't expect to actually find them.
Xiang Yang was very curious. Under the ice layer that was hundreds of meters thick, those creatures could not use sunlight to photosynthesize and obtain energy to survive.
The nearest place where light can be obtained is more than 600 kilometers away. Can those creatures survive by synthesizing the energy they need through their own chemical processes
This is an incredible way of survival among terrestrial organisms, but it is also a very common way of survival under the sea.
In addition, there are many lakes under the glaciers of the Antarctic continent.
For a long time, scientists from all over the world have paid close attention to those lakes, hoping to discover new organisms in them.
After research, scientists discovered that some magical creatures can survive under the ice for millions of years.
This has even surpassed human cognition, and it is no exaggeration to say that it is an immortal creature.
The discovery of these organisms has convinced scientists that the requirements of organisms for the environment may not be so demanding.
Many biologists believe that since life can exist in extreme environments on Earth, it is very likely that there are some life on alien planets. With the development of human science and technology, humans will one day be able to discover new species in the universe.
After reaching the ice, Xiang Yang was not idle this time. He personally worked with the crew to build a camp on the ice.
The elephant seal did not leave alone. It followed the fleet and swam to this sea area.
When Xiang Yang and other crew members got off the boat and reached the ice, the seal even chased them onto the ice, as if it wanted to get close to Xiang Yang and others.
Immediately, several crew members carrying gas tanks used flamethrowers to spray fire at the elephant seal, driving it far away from the camp.
"Oh my God, Captain, Mr. Gao, come and look, this looks like a plant." At this moment, a crew member suddenly exclaimed loudly.
Xiang Yang smiled and felt that the crew member was a little surprised.
Antarctica is one of the most mysterious places on Earth. There are still many unsolved mysteries about this remote, desolate, ice-covered area. Due to its vast area and distance from the cities where we live, humans have a sense of mystery about Antarctica.
The presence of plants in such a large area of Antarctica is not surprising at all.
But Xiang Yang still ran towards the direction where the crew member was.
When Xiang Yang came closer, he was stunned himself.
Because what was growing on that piece of ice seemed to be a kind of mushroom.
"Brother Yang, do you recognize this mushroom?" Fang Youqun asked curiously.
Xiang Yang shook his head, "I don't recognize it. It may be a completely new species."
It's not hard to discover a new species in a place like Antarctica; scientists estimate there are about 15 million different species living on Earth.
So far, scientists have discovered and named only about 2 million species, less than one-seventh of the total.
"Wait, I think I know what this is." Xiang Yang suddenly remembered a document he had read before.
Just last August, scientists accidentally discovered a marine organism similar to a spore plant on a huge rock on the seabed 900 meters below the Antarctic ice shelf.
It appears that a researcher who drilled a hole in an ice shelf near the southeastern Weddell Sea in Antarctica stumbled upon a rock that hosted life after obtaining a sediment core from the sea floor.
Compared with the various exotic creatures in Antarctica, this spore plant is simply insignificant.
Scientists have discovered countless small mobile creatures in their surveys of Antarctic marine life.
For example, fish, worms, jellyfish and krill, it is a miracle that these creatures can survive in Antarctica.
Far below the ice shelf, scientists even discovered stationary filter-feeding animals that had never been seen before.
Some animals under the ice can survive by swallowing food that falls on them, but their scarcity has left many scientists puzzled over how they survive in the darkness, lack of food and sub-zero temperatures under the ice.