The E/V Nautilus team noticed a neat underwater formation in 2022 that resembled a yellow brick … [+] avenue.E/V Nautilus/Ocean Exploration Accept as true with
A unusual science tale emerged from the sea depths in 2022 and it’s now circulating on-line once more. A staff of ocean explorers noticed what appeared like a “‘yellow brick avenue’ to the legendary town of Atlantis” whilst exploring the sea flooring within the Papahānaumokuakea Marine Nationwide Monument within the Pacific Ocean west of Hawaii. The formation’s resemblance to a human-built avenue captured the general public’s creativeness, but it surely isn’t an artifact from a long-lost civilization that was once swept beneath the waves.
The video got here from a remote-operated car piloted via the team of the Exploration Vessel Nautilus. The analysis vessel is operated via the nonprofit Ocean Exploration Accept as true with. OET has energetic outreach and public engagement elements to its paintings, so the crowd continuously livestreams the E/V Nautilus adventures. Spotlight movies from the ROV dives continuously sing their own praises abnormal sea animals, like this uncommon deep-sea jelly.
The E/V Nautilus staff in the beginning posted a spotlight video in April 2022 appearing off some intriguing geologic options on the Liliʻuokalani Ridge seamounts within the nationwide monument. Seamounts are underwater mountains.
Informal audience would possibly omit what’s in point of fact happening with the road-like formation. “What would possibly appear to be a ‘yellow brick avenue’ to the legendary town of Atlantis is in point of fact an instance of historic energetic volcanic geology,” the staff wrote on the time. The unique video options enthusiastic are living statement from researchers who have been wowed via the semblance of the rock and likened it to the yellow brick avenue from The Wizard of Oz.. They described it as “unusual,” “cool” and “loopy.” The orderliness of the formation at the side of a public urge for food for odd sea discoveries became the funky rocks into a web based hit.
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The tale’s reemergence in 2024 induced the Nautilus staff to deal with the video anew. “Our 2022 ‘yellow brick avenue’ video is making the rounds within the information cycle once more, so we needed to percentage the actual tale at the back of this interesting geological characteristic: a fractured float of hyaloclastite rock that occurs all over high-energy eruptions,” the crowd wrote on X on Nov. 7. Hyaloclastite rock bureaucracy when lava flows into water, ice or watery sediments. It’s a not unusual prevalence with undersea eruptions and will continuously create angular bureaucracy.
OET additionally posted a video on X explaining how the brick-like formations are most probably brought about via heating and cooling rigidity from more than one eruptions.
E/V Nautilus has made more than one visits to the Papahānaumokuākea Marine Nationwide Monument to map up to now unsurveyed spaces. But even so taking a literal deep dive into the geology of the world, the vessel additionally accumulated information at the animals and microorganisms that decision the seamounts house. “Those research will lend a hand supply baseline knowledge at the residing communities of seamounts which will tell control and conservation measures,” the staff mentioned. There’s a lot more to find. Papahānaumokuākea covers over 582,500 sq. miles and is without doubt one of the biggest marine conservation spaces on the earth.
E/V Nautilus hasn’t bogged down for the reason that yellow brick avenue. It’s these days visiting the Palau Nationwide Marine Sanctuary within the western Pacific on a project to discover and map the seafloor. Keep tuned for extra wonders from the deep.
