An expedition to a deep-sea ridge, simply north of the Hawaiian Islands, revealed a shock discovery again in 2022: an historic dried-out lake mattress paved with what appears like a yellow brick highway.
The eerie scene was chanced upon by the exploration vessel Nautilus, whereas surveying the Liliʻuokalani ridge inside Papahānaumokuākea Marine Nationwide Monument (PMNM).
PMNM is among the largest marine conservation areas on the planet, bigger than all of the nationwide parks in america mixed, and we have solely explored about 3 p.c of its seafloor.
Researchers on the Ocean Exploration Belief are pushing the frontiers of this wilderness, which lies greater than 3,000 meters beneath the waves, and the most effective half is, anybody can watch the exploration.
A spotlight reel of the expedition’s footage revealed on YouTube in April 2022 captured the second researchers working the deep-sea automobile stumbled upon the highway to Oz.
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“It is the highway to Atlantis,” a researcher on the radio may be heard exclaiming.
“The yellow brick highway?” one other voice counters.
“That is weird,” provides one other member of the staff.
“Are you kidding me? That is loopy.”
Regardless of being positioned beneath a few thousand meters of ocean, the lake mattress found by researchers on the summit of the Nootka seamount appears surprisingly dry.
On the radio, the staff notes that the bottom appears nearly like “baked crust” that might be peeled off.
In a single tiny part, the volcanic rock has fractured in a method that appears strikingly much like bricks.
“The distinctive 90-degree fractures are seemingly associated to heating and cooling stress from a number of eruptions at this baked margin,” reads a caption to the YouTube video.
At first look, the impact is well mistaken for a path to a beautiful new world. And in a method, that is not altogether fallacious.
Following the brick highway is an indication we’re headed in the fitting path and will quickly study an entire lot extra about Earth’s hidden geology.
You may learn extra in regards to the 2022 E/V Nautilus expedition right here.
An earlier model of this text was revealed in Could 2022.