https://www.stuff.co.nz/science/110136956/down-in-the-deep-beneath-the-antarctic-ice-a-new-strange-world-is-rapidly-forming

Their dramatic finding, published in the Nature journal on Thursday, suggests there has been an explosion of life in the deep waters off Antarctica, with a new species being pumped out into the world's oceans.

It upends the old assumption that evolution happens much faster in the warm tropics than the cold Antarctic.

"Antarctica is pumping out the species," O'Hara says.

"And the tropical deep sea is more like a museum. It's extraordinary - and not what people thought."

What's spurring this frenzy of evolution? No one knows, but O'Hara suspects it may be a mass extinction event.

Beginning about 33.5 million years ago, the Earth's poles started to cool by about 15 degrees.

This created the polar ice caps, and eventually killed nearly everything living in the nearby ocean.