SCOTTISH scientists are to take part in an urgent mission to investigate a mysterious marine ecosystem that has been hidden beneath an Antarctic ice shelf for up to 120,000 years.

Researchers from the University of Aberdeen will be part of an expedition led by British Antarctic Survey (BAS) that aims to discover how this marine ecosystem will respond to environmental change in a climate-sensitive region.

The expedition follows the massive calving of the Larsen C Ice Shelf A68 iceberg, which is four times the size of London, which has around 5,818 km2 of seabed.

The team is planning a ship-borne research cruise to the region before the biological communities there begin to change following the movement of the giant iceberg. They can only achieve this, however, if the iceberg continues on its path away from the remaining ice shelf.