Researchers have found mysterious holes at the bottom of the Atlantic, the origin of which has not yet been explained. It’s not the first of its kind.
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Researchers are yet to find an explanation for the holes in the sea floor.
© NOAA
Researchers from the US Ocean and Atmosphere Administration (NOAA) are currently conducting a deep-sea expedition on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and the Azores Plateau with “Voyage to the Ridge 2022”. The goal is to learn more about the underexplored areas of the Charlie Gibbs fracture zone. For this purpose, remote-controlled diving robots are used, which can withstand the pressure of extreme depths. During the fourth dive, the researchers encountered a series of holes on the seabed at a depth of more than 2,500 meters that lie in an almost straight line.
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A close-up reveals a detailed look at the enigmatic holes.
© NOAA
According to NOAA’s blog post, the holes appear almost man-made, but small accumulations of sediment would indicate the holes were excavated. Due to the restricted mobility of the remote-controlled robot, the researchers were not able to take a closer look inside the holes. That’s why they can’t tell if they’re connected underground.
Such cavities on the sea floor have not been discovered for the first time, as early as 2004 an expedition in the mid-Atlantic discovered a similar phenomenon. The researchers responsible published an article on the subject and highlighted that the holes reveal a gap in our basic understanding of mid-ocean ridge ecosystems. They used the German word “Lebensspuren” and hypothesized that this could indicate the digging activities of a living organism living either in the sediment or on the surface.