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SYDNEY - Australian scientists on a CSIRO research ship have identified eddies swirling off the north to south Eastern Australian Current (EAC) which are providing a haven for young fish.

"Previously researchers thought fish only developed in coastal estuaries, but these huge cauldrons of nutrient rich cold water, welling up from the deep, are full of baby fish scooped up or carried along from the coast," said Professor Iain Suthers, from the Sydney Institute of Marine Science.

He told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation the research opens a whole new way of understanding the early life of fish.

"These things last for two to three weeks which is just the right window for larval fish to grow up, get its fins, get its eyes, and then swim back to the coast and settle into an estuary," he said.

"We were really amazed by this."

"This is not in the text books, it's not in the papers, and it's probably a principle that applies to all currents, all coasts around the world."

The research team also discovered massive under water canyons off Australia's eastern seaboard.

Suthers said the canyons help the creation of the eddies, and he surmised these patterns are being repeated around the world.

"These things are found throughout the coastal oceans."

He said eddies are often hidden below a layer of warm water.

Researchers had previously thought these offshore eddies with their coastal water became "death traps."

But they now they believe the baby fish that end up in the eddies are often the lucky ones.

"Just that 10 meters below the surface was this huge cauldron of water rotating at a meter per second," he said.

"It was keeping the community nurtured because of the uplift and the cooler temperature.

"The cold water with its fertilizer, the phytoplankton, the algae at this site, it was so distinctive."

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