China commenced construction on a research facility focused on the cold-seep ecosystem on Friday in Guangzhou, south China's Guangdong Province.

The research facility, designated as one of the country's major national science and technology infrastructure projects, will support cutting-edge fundamental research and high-tech development. Its scope will encompass the exploration of the origins of life in extreme deep-sea environments and the green development of deep-sea resources.

A cold seep is a region on the ocean floor where hydrogen sulfide, methane and other hydrocarbon-rich fluid seep out. These areas are a birthplace for life that can thrive under extreme conditions.

The study of cold seep is gaining increasing attention; however one challenge lies in the limitations of short-term, random underwater probes deployed by manned submersibles and remotely operated vehicles. These probes often struggle to capture long-term biological migration and the evolution of the ecosystem.

The research facility, combining a manned deep-sea laboratory and a land-based fidelity simulation installation, is set to be completed within five years, according to its builder, the South China Sea Institute of Oceanology (SCSIO) under the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

SCSIO said the facility will play an important role in research on the development of the cold-seep ecosystem, the succession of chemosynthetic organisms and methane phase evolution, and its environmental effects.