ResultsFor the scientists on Galathea 2, the expedition reached its absolute zenith in the early hours of 22 July 1951 when they brought back onboard a bag that had made the journey of 10,190 metres down into the deep of the Philippine Trench.
The bag contained pale sea anemones, Gammarus shrimps, mussels and sea cucumbers, which together provided incontrovertible evidence that life is found at depths where the pressure is extremely high: 1 ton per square centimetre.
Galathea 2 succeeded in demonstrating the existence of 115 different animal species at depths of more than 6,000 metres, including a fish that was caught in the Java Trench, 7200 metres below the sea level.
The vast majority of animals found in the deep sea were still unknown to science at that time. The head of the expedition, Professor Bruun, gave the deep-sea zone the name "Hadal", derived from the word ‘Hades’, the realm of the dead in Greek mythology.
Small mollusc with large significance
The greatest single discovery was the proto-mollusc Neopilina galatheae, just under a dozen specimens of which the expedition caught at a depth of 3,600 metres north of the Panama Gulf.
Until then, scientists had believed that the ancestors to this small creature, which is the size of a five-crown coin, had become extinct 350 million years ago.
Foreign scientists subsequently proclaimed that the finding of Neopilina was the greatest discovery for a hundred years, and that this catch alone justified the entire expedition.
A major part of the finds from Galathea 2 are today kept at the Zoological Museum in Copenhagen.
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