Divers solve a mystery near the wreck of the Titanic 26 years later

() — The remains of the Titanic lie in two places on the bottom of the North Atlantic Ocean, slowly decomposing nearly 4,000 meters below the surface. But they are not alone there. A sound that was detected approximately 26 years ago has revealed that there is much more to this underwater area than previously thought.

PH Nargeolet, a veteran pilot of the Nautile submersible and research diver on the Titanic, originally detected the sound with a nautical sounder in 1996. However, the origin of the phenomenon remained unanswered…until now.

On an expedition to the wreck of the Titanic earlier this year, Nargeolet and four other researchers headed to the site where the sound had previously been recorded to search for the mysterious object that caused it. Due to the magnitude of the sound, Nargeolet believed that it could be another shipwreck, but instead he found a rocky reef, made up of various volcanic formations, and teeming with lobsters, deep-sea fish, sponges and various species of coral that could have thousands of years.

“It’s biologically fascinating. The animals that live there are very different from those found living in the abyssal plain of the ocean,” said Murray Roberts, a professor of applied marine biology and ecology at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and one of the researchers. of the expedition. “(Nargeolet) did some really important scientific work. He thought it was a shipwreck, and it turned out, in my opinion, even more amazing than a shipwreck.”

The abyssal plain is a term used to describe the ocean floor at a depth of 3,000 to 4,000 meters, which makes up 60% of the Earth’s surface, according to Roberts. It is believed to be a featureless, muddy seafloor without much structure. On a few occasions, divers have observed rock formations in this abyssal plain. Since the recent discovery near the Titanic, Roberts now believes such features could be more common than previously thought.

The rocky areas may also help explain the distances that sponges and corals travel on the ocean floor, which has always been a mystery to scientists. In the muddy environment in which they are often seen, there are few hard surfaces for these species to cling to for growth and reproduction.

“Sometimes they show up in places where we think, ‘Well, how did they get there? They don’t live long enough to get there,'” Roberts said. “But if there are more of these rocky places than we thought, I think it could help us understand the distribution of these species throughout the ocean.”

The researchers are currently working on analyzing the images and videos taken of the reef during their dive, and intend to share their findings to improve the scientific community’s understanding of life in the deep sea. Roberts also hopes to link this discovery to a larger project on the Atlantic Ocean ecosystem that he directs, called iAtlantic, that will allow further study and protection of the reef’s fragile ecosystem.

There is another unknown sound near the Titanic that Nargeolet hopes to identify on a future expedition. It was recorded in the same survey he conducted years ago, between the wreckage of the Titanic and the newly discovered reef, now called Nargeolet-Fanning Ridge in his honor and that of 2022 expedition specialist Oisín Fanning. Nargeolet hopes that once the mystery is discovered, it will be even bigger than this reef.

OceanGate Expeditions and his foundation, which, along with Fanning, provided the financial support for the Nargeolet dive this year, will continue its longitudinal research work on the Titanic and surrounding areas in 2023.

“The marine life…it was so beautiful. It was really amazing, because I never expected to see that in my life,” Nargeolet said. “I will be very happy to continue watching the Titanic.”