The world’s largest whale graveyard has been discovered on the floor of the Indian Ocean, and it is also the deepest and oldest known of its kind on Earth, with some fossils dating back 5.3 million years.
While exploring from a small submersible, researchers encountered an unusual concentration of marine remains and were stunned as the true scale of the site emerged. Nearly 500 skeletons were located at depths of up to 7,000 metres, spread along a 1,200-kilometre corridor of bones west of Australia in the Indian Ocean. The findings include fossils from extinct whale species, among them a 5.3-million-year-old skull from the beaked whale species Pterocetus benguelae. In comparison, most previously recorded whale falls have been found at depths of less than 4,000 metres.
Remarkable discovery!
Read the study in the latest issue of the journal Nature
