Once known as “Polar Queen,” the Research Vessel (R/V) Falkor is one of the most advanced exploratory ships created by the Schmidt Ocean Institute. At 83 meters (272 ft) long and 13 meters (43 ft) wide, this state-of-the-art vessel travels the globe mapping the seafloor and uncovering the mysteries of marine life. This summer, it embarked on a new expedition, making a thrilling discovery 900 miles off the coast of Chile. Rising from the Nazca Ridge is a massive seamount brimming with strange marine creatures never seen before. This underwater mountain is not only four times taller than the Burj Khalifa but also larger than Mount Olympus. The institute shared news of the discovery in a press release.
Seamounts—underwater mountains—and deep-sea trenches often serve as habitats for unique marine life, but this newly discovered seamount is the largest ever recorded. According to CNN, it stands at 1.9 miles (3,109 meters) tall, surpassing the height of Greece’s Mount Olympus, which is 1.8 miles (2,917 meters) high. This unnamed seamount is home to sponge gardens, coral reefs, and rare marine species, all thriving in vibrant hues within this deep-sea ecosystem.
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.”
