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Welcome to Top10 Archive!
The Earth’s oceans are vast and mysterious, and even top scientists still can’t be certain
exactly what’s hidden down there.
Thankfully, curious researchers are diving deep below the surface of the earth to see
what they can find.
And every now and again they find things so baffling and incredible that no explanation
can be found.
Here’s our list of the top ten mysterious things found underwater.
Before we take you on a journey beneath the deep blue sea, be sure to hit the subscribe
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And, if you enjoy this video, give us a like and leave a comment letting us know which
underwater discovery blew your mind the most.
10.
Ruins of Atlit Yam Mediterranean Sea Over the years, many ancient cities have been
discovered in the depths of the ocean, but the Atlit Yam ruins are especially mysterious.
Buried 8 to 12 meters, or 26 to 39 feet deep, the 1984 discovery of the 9,000-year-old site
is nothing short of fascinating.
The city is thought to be from the Neolithic era and is one of the oldest and largest civilizations
ever discovered.
Many interesting artifacts have been found at the site in the Mediterranean Sea, including
mysterious structures that date back thousands of years.
One such structure is an incredible ritual site which consists of gigantic stones arranged
in a circle around what was once a spring.
A stone well was also found, which was first used for water service, but due to a large
number of remains found in it, it was later thought to be used as a disposal pit.
A total of 65 sets of human remains were located around the city, and some of them have provided
some of the earliest proof of tuberculosis.
Bones belonging to wild and domestic animals were also found, which seems to prove that
the residents of Atlit Yam both raised and hunted animals for food.
9.
Manganese Balls Back in 2015, a vast collection of metal balls
were discovered in the Atlantic Ocean.
Scientists looking for deep-sea creatures between South America and Africa made the
startling discovery of what looks to be thousands of manganese balls scattered along the seabed.
A German research ship was several hundred miles off the coast of Barbados when the mesh
net they were using to capture marine life brought up several balls of manganese ore.
Some were as big as softballs, and upon further investigation, it was found that there were
many, many others.
Some were even as big as bowling balls, while other just a few millimeters in circumference,
and the mysterious thing is that nobody knows where they came from.
The metal lumps are formed from layers of metal ore that have slowly crystallized to
form the balls that were found.
The center of the masses were either fossils, rocks, or fragments of other nodules.
8.
Underwater River The idea of finding water underwater probably
doesn’t sound that mysterious, but when you consider the fact that this particular
river is only accessible to experienced master divers, it becomes a whole lot more impressive.
The Cenote Angelita Cave is situated in the Mayan Riviera in Mexico, and 90 feet below
the water’s surface is a beautiful and fascinating river that draws divers from all around the
world.
There are trees and plants adorning the river’s banks, and it truly resembles a real-life
river.
It is, however, an illusion, and the river is actually just a cloud of hydrogen sulfide
created by mixing saltwater and freshwater together.
If you’re only interested in real underwater rivers, the Black Sea’s offering might,
erm, float your boat a little more.
The river remains its own entity because the water is much saltier than the water that
surrounds it, and so, it’s denser.
Its salinity also allows the river to run faster than the surrounding Black Sea water,
giving it a realistic appearance of a river.
Oh, and if that wasn’t awesome enough, it’s said that the river’s large volume would
make it the world’s sixth largest river if it was on land.
7.
Zhemchug Canyon From underwater rivers to an underwater canyon.
This gigantic formation is so huge that it’s actually only visible in full from space.
Amazing, yes?
This mega-canyon was discovered in the Bering Sea and is the deepest underwater canyon known
to man.
Its volume is a mind-blowing 5,800 cubic kilometers or 1,400 cubic miles, and it has a depth of
2.6 kilometers or 1.6 miles.
To put that into perspective, Zhemchug Canyon could fit the entire Grand Canyon inside of
it!
Submarines have traveled through the canyon and have discovered sea life-galore.
But sadly, unless you have a submarine or a way of traveling to space, you’re just
going to have to make do with these images here.
6.
The Antikythera Mechanism If you haven’t heard of the Antikythera
Mechanism - and let’s face it, not many of us have - it’s an ancient Greek analog
computer which was used to predict astronomical positions and eclipses.
The Greeks would then use this information to create calendars decades in advance.
It’s also thought that the computer was used to track the four-year cycle of the ancient
athletic games.
When one was found in 1901 by Greek divers, archeologists around the globe were thrilled
to find something dating back so far.
It was determined that the instrument was designed and constructed around 87 BC, and
it’s incredible that such an advanced piece of machinery was developed in ancient times.
Makes you wonder what you’ve achieved with your life really, doesn’t it?
No?
Just me?
Rats.
5.
Black Smokers in the Arctic Circle The last place you’d think to look for boiling
water is in the Arctic Sea, but that’s exactly was found back in 2008.
Scientists discovered chimney-like formations which occur when the icy seawater meets magma,
and they behave in the same way that hot springs do when they shoot water out.
The fluids in the chimneys reach temperatures of 370 degrees Celsius, or 700 degrees Fahrenheit,
and are often called Black Smokers because of the color of the iron sulfide deposits
created by the formations.
Black Smokers are found around the globe, but what makes these ones special is that
they’re the northernmost examples ever discovered, and scientists had previously believed that
they wouldn’t be able to form in areas with such slow tectonic plate spreading.
This discovery is yet another example of how mysterious and spectacular our planet is.
4.
Blackbeard’s Books Captain Blackbeard is perhaps the best-known
pirate of all time, and so any discovery relating to him is instantly fascinating.
Blackbeard’s ship, the Queen Anne’s Revenge, was discovered by private salvagers off the
coast of North Carolina in 1996, and excavation began around a year later.
Cannons weighing as much as 3,000 pounds were found, as well as personal items belonging
to Blackbeard himself.
Fragments from a wet mass of textiles were taken and cleaned up, and of 16 paper fragments,
seven of them contained legible text.
A team of people worked out that the page fragments were from a first edition of Captain
Edward Cooke’s book dating back to 1712.
Who knew that Blackbeard had time to read in-between stealing ships, fighting enemies,
and other pirate activities?
3.
Yonaguni Monument A giant rock formation off the coast of Japan
has scientists baffled, as nobody can figure out whether or not it’s manmade.
Divers found the structure in 1987 and although it looks as though it must have been constructed
by humans, it’s entirely underwater.
How would they have managed such a feat?
The 3,000-year-old sandstone formation is connected to the rock beneath it, and the
most prominent section of the structure is almost 500 feet long and 130 feet wide.
It’s also 90 feet tall, which creates more questions surrounding how it could possibly
be manmade.
Some scientists debate that the structure was once on dry land, but that an earthquake
or erosion must have resulted in it sliding into the ocean.
But, maybe we’ll never know the origins of the mysterious structure.
2.
Lake Michigan Stonehenge While scouring the depths of Lake Michigan
for shipwrecks, archeologists discovered something much more fascinating.
They stumbled upon an incredible underwater version of Stonehenge.
The series of stones arranged in a similar manner to Stonehenge was also accompanied
by a boulder with a prehistoric carving of a mastodon.
This mysterious prehistoric discovery was found 40 feet into Lake Michigan’s Grand
Traverse Bay, and although some of the markings could easily have been created by nature over
the years, it seems as though many of them were manmade.
The discovery could be up to 10,000 years old, which would coincide with the post-Ice
Age presence of humans and mastodons in the area.
Could the stone circle have been used in rituals?
What was the purpose of the structure?
We may never know, but the thought is truly fascinating.
1.
Baltic Sea Anomaly Anything with ‘anomaly’ in the title is
bound to be cool, right?
Well, this finding is no exception to the rule.
Since its discovery by the cool-sounding Ocean X diving team, researchers around the globe
have tried and failed to find an explanation for the geological feature found on the seabed.
The diving team was returning from an expedition in 2011 when they noticed a blurry but interesting
object on the ocean floor.
Upon further investigation, the team realized that they were seeing a crop of land around
60-meters or 200 feet in diameter.
The object seems to have stairs and ramps that could not have been created naturally,
and that’s not even the strangest thing about it.
The diving team reported that their technology malfunctioned around the site and that anything
electrical would fail within a 200-meter range.
The object is thought by some, including me, to resemble the Millennium Falcon from the
Star Wars films.
What do you think?