Author: Jessica Leigh Hester / Source: Atlas Obscura

Far from shore, the ocean floor is more than an unbroken swath of sand and mud: It can be blanketed with lush, green carpets of seagrass. These wavy expanses are biodiversity hotspots and have significant ecological benefits, but because so little of the ocean has been surveyed and mapped, scientists don’t know exactly where all of these green spaces are.
“We know more about the surface of Mars than the ocean floor,” said American Museum of Natural History ichthyologist John Sparks at a recent event at the museum.There’s a general consensus that these undersea meadows are numerous and widely dispersed in shallow and deeper water alike, since seagrasses can survive on fewer nutrients than some other plants can manage. But grasses growing far beneath the waves often go unstudied compared to those closer to shore. Since green turtles (Chelonia mydas) are known to nibble on seagrasses, researchers at Swansea University trailed them, with the idea that they might lead the way to their sunken grazing grounds.

The scientists tagged turtles with GPS devices when the reptiles clustered to nest on shore, 18 in total. Satellite tracking then helped the researchers follow them—eventually to the Great Chagos Bank, a vast atoll in the…
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