Oceanographers discover gigantic undersea mountain taller than Mount Olympus in the Pacific Ocean

Formerly called “Polar Queen,” the Research Vessel (R/V) Falkor is one of the most sophisticated exploratory vessels designed by Schmidt Ocean Institute. Measuring 83 meters (272ft) in length and 13 meters (43ft) in width, the state-of-the-art vessel sails on waters around the world, and maps the seafloor to discover intricate secrets of underwater life. This summer, the vessel sailed forth on yet another expedition and made a fascinating discovery. 900 miles off the coast of Chile, shooting upwards on the Nazca Ridge is a gigantic seamount teeming and throbbing with bizarre marine animals never seen before. The seamount is not only four times the size of Burj Khalifa, but also bigger than Mount Olympus. The institute reported the discovery in a press release.

Underwater mountains called seamounts and deep-sea trenches are often home to various marine creatures, but this particular seamount is larger than ever recorded. According to CNN, the seamount is 1.9 miles (3,109 meters) tall, whereas Mount Olympus in Greece is approximately 1.8 miles (2,917 meters) high. This unnamed seamount discovered is home to sponge gardens, fringing corals, and rare marine species, all seething and breathing like color plumes in the underwater mountain.

The expedition succeeded because the researchers had the advantage of modern technology. They were able to map this giant seamount by using a sonar system attached to the underside of the ship’s hull. “Sound waves go down and they bounce back off the surface, and we measure the time it takes to come back and get measured. From that, we get a really good idea (of the seabed topography),” Jyotika Virmani, the institute’s executive director, told CNN. At this moment, she said, only about 26% of the seafloor has been mapped to this kind of resolution. And the seafloor covers 71% of our planet’s surface.

In their exploratory dive, the team also employed an underwater robot to investigate the thriving ecosystem breathing within the seamount. They found that inside the coral garden, about the size of three tennis courts, swam species like rockfish, brittle stars, and king crabs. Not only this, they were also able to capture the first-ever footage of a live Promachoteuthis squid. They also filmed the ghostly white Casper octopus, Oreo fish, and flying spaghetti monsters. Located far away from the coast, the environment was free of human intrusion and therefore, pristine.

According to the press release, this expedition was the third exploration of 2024, of the Salas y Gómez and Nazca Ridges conducted on the R/V Falkor. Two previous expeditions in January and February documented over 150 previously unknown species, and 20 new species were collected during this expedition. “The seamounts of the Southeastern Pacific host remarkable biological diversity, with species found nowhere else to date,” said Prof. Alex David Rogers, Science Director of Ocean Census. Meanwhile, Virmani confirmed to ABC News that they will continue to discover new marine species in their future expeditions. "Every time we go out to the ocean, we find something new," she said. "So it's almost like we expect to find something every time we go out. I think we'd be disappointed if we didn't."