Marine biologists discovered what looked like a yellow brick road on an undersea mountain near Hawaii. On the YouTube video of the discovery, one scientist mused “The yellow brick road?” Some people observed the rocks and said they reminded them of a very different fictitious setting. “It’s the route to Atlantis,” one researcher noted.
Follow the Yellow Brick Road to Atlantis!
The thin band of golden boulders, which are neatly split from one another at 90-degree angles, appears to have been chiseled and assembled by human hands. However, the road’s appearance belied the fact that it was simply the product of an ancient volcanic activity that occurred hundreds of feet below the water’s surface.
The team discovered a “dry lake bed” structure at the top of Nootka Seamount, which has now been identified as a broken flow of hyaloclastite rock. It is a volcanic rock that develops during explosive eruptions in which a lot of rock pieces end up on the seafloor.
The scientists went on to say that the impressively brick-like divides in the rocks are probably the coincidental outcome of heating and cooling stresses from numerous volcanic eruptions over millions of years.
While operating a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) around the Papahnaumokuakea Marine National Monument, in search of Atlantis, a protected conservation area covering about 582,578 square miles (1,508,870 square kilometers) of the Pacific Ocean northwest of Hawaii, the researchers made a detour down this unsettling underwater road. The mission, which is a part of the Ocean Exploration Trust’s Nautilus Exploration Program, will look into the historic seamounts close to Lili’uokalani Ridge, which is at the western boundary of the monument.
What Else Did Scientists Find?
Gathering geological samples from the region’s seamounts, which are underwater mountains created by volcanic activity, is one of the team’s key objectives to better understand their ages and origins. According to the researchers’ post on the Nautilus website, learning this may potentially provide new insights into how the Hawaiian Islands formed. Additionally, the crew will gather microbial samples to investigate the types of bizarre species that have survived close to the Pacific Ocean’s submerged volcanoes.
Numerous unsettling aquatic anomalies have been discovered during previous Atlantis expeditions aboard the research vessel Nautilus. The Papahnaumokuakea Marine National Monument trip in 2018 left researchers in awe of a wiggling, googly-eyed creature that appeared to alter the shape in front of the camera. The creature was later recognized by scientists as a gulper eel (Eurypharynx pelecanoides), a fish with a jaw so huge that can unhinge and devour prey that is bigger than it.