Solar eclipse made marine life vanish from trawler’s sonar

The marine life beneath the trawler Kaldbakur EA disappeared from its depth finders as a solar eclipse passed over fishing grounds northwest of Iceland, mbl.is reported. The disappearance lasted for several hours.

“The life I had been watching on the depth finders all day simply disappeared,” said Oddur Jóhann Brynjólfsson, the vessel’s captain. “It evaporated for a few hours.”

Oddur had expected the sudden darkness to affect marine life and had the trawl ready in case the fish gathered together. However, he did not expect the fishing grounds to become empty, or for the effect to last so long.

Jónas Páll Jónasson, head of the pelagic division at Iceland’s Marine and Freshwater Research Institute, said various studies had examined how light and darkness affect marine organisms. Fish are known to follow daily cycles, he said, although the effects vary between species.

There are no studies that fully explain what happened in the depths beneath Kaldbakur or why the fish disappeared for such a long period, Jónas said.