Overview
- The study published June 10 reports a continuous corridor of whale remains across roughly 746 to 750 miles in the Diamantina Fracture Zone and describes the site as the largest and deepest whale‑fall system yet documented.
- Researchers used the Chinese submersible Fendouzhe in early 2023 to carry out 32 dives that located 485 fossil deposits plus five active whale‑fall sites and recovered dozens of specimens for lab study.
- Dating shows some bones are about 5.3 million years old and paleontologists identified a new extinct beaked whale named Pterocetus diamantinae from material recovered at the site.
- Scientists observed rich scavenger and chemosynthetic communities on modern carcasses including tubeworms, bone‑eating worms, brittle stars and bivalves, many of which may be species new to science.
- Authors report model‑based density estimates that could imply millions to more than ten million remains but say those figures and the causes of accumulation—topographic funneling, whale behavior, bone chemistry and slow burial—need more targeted sampling and analysis.