Search for famed shipwreck reveals geometric nest patterns created by fish in Antarctica

Sea ice covers much of Antarctica's Weddell Sea. Dr. Michelle Taylor/Weddell Sea Expedition 2019

During an expedition to search for a famed shipwreck, researchers discovered something unexpected: striking geometric patterns on the floor of Antarctica’s western Weddell Sea created by fish.

The seafloor had once been obscured beneath a thick ice shelf, but that changed in July 2017 when the massive A68 iceberg calved from the Larsen C Ice Shelf. The iceberg measured 2,239 square miles (5,800 square kilometers) — about the size of Delaware.

Seizing an opportunity to study the previously hidden seafloor, researchers organized the Weddell Sea Expedition 2019 with two goals in mind: exploring the biology of the western Weddell Sea and searching for the wreckage of the HMS Endurance, which