During a recent expedition to the not-to-be-completely explored depths of the North Mid-Atlantic Ridge, marine researchers stumbled upon something strange:

Small holes dug in the sediment, arranged in dozens of semi-straight lines, which brought back to memory those mysterious holes that scientists saw previously in 2004 in the same area.

The Mid-Atlantic Ridge stretches over 16,000 km and is the longest ridge in the world - despite the fact that most of us have never seen it and don't know much about this region, which is why it is the focus of Noah Ridge 2022. (Ridge 2022), May-September 2022.

A press release published on the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) website states that "during Dive Flight 04 of the second flight of the Voyage to the Ridge 2022 expedition, we observed several groups of wormholes." The sediments of the sea floor line up in semi-straight lines at a depth of about 2540 metres.

The statement describes the holes as looking like man-made, with mounds of small sediment around them. Scientists have tried to peek inside the holes and poke them with tools in the remotely operated submarine, but they were unable.

It was not clear whether the holes connected under the sediment surface.

Holes baffle scientists

In the report published by Science Alert on the discovery, scientists point out that the holes on the sea floor are not usually very puzzling, but these holes were dotted in an incredibly elegant and harmonious manner, and were it not for the fact that they are located 2.5 kilometers away Almost under the surface of the Atlantic Ocean, in an isolated place, it would have been human action.

Aboard a ship called the Okeanos Explorer, researchers used a robotic submarine to explore the underwater volcanic reef north of the Azores archipelago, off the coast of Portugal on July 23.

About a week later, the researchers found 4 more sets of holes about 483 km apart and 1.6 km deep.

On Saturday's #Okeanos dive, we saw several sublinear sets of holes in the seafloor.

The origin of the holes has scientists stumped.

The holes look human made, but the little piles of sediment around them suggest they were excavated by…something.

What's your hypothesis?

pic.twitter.com/iGezxV9TK8

— NOAA Ocean Exploration (@oceanexplorer) July 25, 2022

Because scientists are not sure of the origin of these holes, they decided to take the opinion of followers on social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook to find out what hypotheses they might have about how these holes formed. known and down to the rising gas from the bottom of the sea.

However, this was not the first time that scientists encountered these mysterious holes. In July 2004, while exploring at a depth of 2,082 meters during an expedition along the central North Atlantic Ridge, scientists discovered several groups of these holes.

A research paper published last January in Frontiers in Marine Science sheds light on how these unusual holes point to the gaps in our basic understanding of mid-ocean ridge ecosystems. The research paper has some hypotheses that have been shared on social media.

Scientists hypothesize that elevated sediment may indicate an organism excavating and removing (NOAA)

The source is still unknown

While scientists in that previous study were not able to definitively determine where the holes came from or how they originated, they hypothesized that the elevated sediment might indicate that an organism living in the sediment was digging and removing, possibly by feeding a large animal on the surface of the sediment.

They used the term lebensspuren to describe holes, which translates to "traces of life" and refers to patterns in surface sediments resulting from bioturbation (or disturbance of sediments by living organisms), and these holes are reminiscent of those reported on deep marine rocks.

Since then, no more has been discovered about the holes, but it is hoped that this mission will provide some answers, and as part of a recent expedition, the researchers were able to sample sediment around the holes using the submarine's suction device in the hope that it will shed light on whether there is Something lives there or not.

"The ultimate origin of the holes remains a mystery, and indeed the unknowns we face are often as deep and mysterious as the ocean itself. With each expedition to map and explore the depths of the ocean, we learn more about this very vital ecosystem in our lifetime," the researchers conclude in their press release.