Credit: Nautilus Project.
An underwater expedition has revealed a mysterious ancient brick road 3,000 meters deep in the sea.
The discovery, which happened by chance, was made by the ship Nautilus exploration vessel (EVN), when they inspected the seamounts and volcanoes of the Liliʻuokalani Ridgein the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument (PMNM) in Hawaii.
As explained by the portal ScienceAlertthe site is one of the largest marine preservation areas on the planet, even larger than all the national parks in the United States combined, to the point that only 3% of its seabed has been explored.
Exploration is operated by the non-profit organization Ocean Exploration Trustin partnership with NOAA Ocean Exploration and the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries, whose researchers post live images and daily updates on their explorations and discoveries, saw the precise moment they stumbled upon the path under the seathrough his YouTube channel.
The seamount explored.
The remnant of an ancient civilization?
In the video, you can hear the surprised exclamation of one of the searchers when finding the underwater path: “This is the way to Atlantis!“.
To which another member of the team replies: “The yellow brick road? », « It’s strange », « Are you kidding me? It’s madness.”
What is this path?
Initially, researchers from the Ocean Exploration Trust, in charge of the discovery, thought it was part of a dry lake bed. However, it was identified as a fractured flow of hyaloclastite rock (a volcanic rock formed during high energy eruptions where many rock fragments are deposited on the sea floor).
Therefore, the yellow brick road it appears to be an example of ancient active volcanic geology, which fractured the rock in a curiously uniform way.
According to the YouTube video’s photo caption “the single 90 degree fractures are likely related to heating and cooling stress from multiple eruptions in this baked margin.” Therefore, the effect at first glance can quickly be confused with a path.
The amazing exploration of this never-before-studied area is helping researchers dig deeper into life on and in the rocky slopes of these ancient deep seamounts, which will provide baseline information about living underwater communities.
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