SCIENTISTS will use a robot to probe the darkest depths of the Great Barrier Reef in a search for marine "dinosaurs" previously thought to be extinct.

An international team of researchers left Townsville yesterday to embark on a $500,000 three-week voyage exploring marine life living at depths of up to 1000m on the undersea slopes of the Great Barrier Reef and the Coral Sea. Most scientific knowledge of marine life living on the Reef is limited to 30m.

It is hoped discoveries may lend themselves to biomedical breakthroughs, and help authorities make more informed decisions about managing the marine park.

The 15 scientists are drawn from three German universities, James Cook University, the University of Queensland and the Queensland Museum.

The scientific team will deploy their robotic underwater Remote Operated Vehicle (ROV) in their attempt to find out more about the living relics of animals only found in the fossil record. These include sponges, the squid-like Nautilus, cold water corals, lamp shells, and relatives of star fish.

Some of these animals, previously thought to be extinct, are believed to have survived in these areas for 65 million years.

JCU geochemist Dr Rob Beaman, who is helping guide the mission, said the undersea environment at such depths had remained virtually unchanged for millions of years, describing some of its inhabitants as "marine dinosaurs".

"In the deeper parts of the Great Barrier Reef and the Coral Sea, the environment is very, very stable, where it’s cold and very, very dark," he said.

The German members of the research team originally discovered this deep-sea life on an expedition to the Coral Sea in the mid 1990s through deep water trawls.

The crew will be probing the depths around Flinders, Holmes, Bougainville and Osprey reefs, docking in Cairns around
December 20.

Dr Beaman said specimens and underwater vision from the expedition would be collected with the ROV, and brought back to the Queensland Museum for further examination.

The ROV, which is about the size of a small car, is equipped with a moveable claw and camera to record a constant feed of video images.

"We’ve got oceanographic instruments to try and sample what the water environment is like,’’ Dr Beaman said.

"It’s one thing to put a trawl down or a dredge and blindly grab what might be there.

"It’s another to get vision, because that gives context about where everything lives.’’

Follow the scientists’ amazing voyage here>>

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