Overview
- A study published in Nature on Wednesday confirms a continuous whale-fall deposit running about 1,200 km across the Diamantina Fracture Zone at hadal depths and maps 485 sites.
- Researchers recovered roughly 476 fossil whale remains and identified five active whale-fall ecosystems during crewed submersible dives led by the Global TREnD/GHEP program.
- Radiometric dating shows some skulls are about 5.26–5.3 million years old, and taxonomic work describes at least one new extinct beaked-whale species, Pterocetus diamantinae.
- Observers documented rich living communities on the active carcasses, including microbial mats, Osedax bone-eating worms, brittle stars, bivalves, sea cucumbers, and squat lobsters.
- Authors say dense beaked-whale skulls, ferromanganese mineral coatings and V-shaped seafloor topography likely concentrated and preserved the bones, and they call for more taxonomic and ecological follow-up surveys.