Divers uncover a surprising discovery near the wreck of the Titanic

[Tyrian-Quill]

The wreck of the Titanic sits in two parts at the bottom of the North Atlantic Ocean, slowly decaying nearly 4,000 meters (13,000 feet) below the surface, but it’s not alone. A sonar blip detected around 26 years ago has now revealed there’s much more to this underwater area than previously thought.

P.H. Nargeolet, a veteran Nautile submersible pilot and Titanic diver, originally picked up the blip on echo sounding equipment in 1996, but its origins have remained unknown.

In an expedition to the Titanic shipwreck earlier this year, Nargeolet and four other researchers went to the blip’s previously recorded location to search for the mysterious object it represented. Due to the blip’s magnitude, Nargeolet had believed he was looking for another shipwreck — he instead found a rocky reef, made up of various volcanic formations, and thriving with lobsters, deep-sea fish, sponges and several species of coral that could be thousands of years old.

“It is biologically fascinating. The animals that live there are very different to the animals that are found otherwise living in the abyssal ocean,” said Murray Roberts, a professor of applied marine biology and ecology at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and one of the researchers on the expedition. “(Nargeolet) did a really important piece of scientific work. He thought it was a shipwreck, and it turned out, in my mind, even more amazing than a shipwreck.”

To read the entire article- click on: Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/07/world/ti ... index.html

Nature is wonderous!
...cheers

[nucksRnum1]

Sad that people are raping and pillaging a site that is hallowed ground.

[Catsumi]

Technology is wonderful in that we can explore our own world more closely and make scientific advancements that enriches us all.

At first, when reading the OP, I thought it was another ocean hot vent being described, but apparently, not so. The animals are living without benefit of a hearth.

The researchers are currently working on analyzing images and videos taken of the reef during their dive, and they intend to share their findings to improve the scientific community’s collective knowledge of deep-sea life. Roberts also hopes to link this discovery to a wider Atlantic Ocean ecosystem project he leads, called iAtlantic, that will allow for further study and protection of the fragile ecosystem within the reef.