Millions of Fossil Whale Bones Found in Deep Ocean Graveyard

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0:36It's at a depth of seven kilometres. It's been described as a deep sea fossil megacite or a whale necropolis. It's part of a programme to map the deepest parts of the ocean. If they found this out there with hundreds of whale skeletons, you just wonder what else they're going to discover. From New Scientist, this is the World, the Universe and Us. I'm Dr Rowan Hooper. I'm joined today by Australia reporter James Woodford. James. Hey, Rowan, how are you? Hey, good to see you. Take us through this mission. OK, so this is an extraordinary bunch of researchers. I've done stories about their work in the past, the bravery and the technology that they're employing.

1:15But back in early 2023, these researchers were in a vessel that has a submersible. They're about a thousand kilometres off the coast of Perth. And they went down to a depth of seven kilometres into this part of the Indian Ocean called the Diamantina Trench, the Diamantina Zone. And at the bottom, they have these really bright lights because it's absolutely zero light. So it's pitch black. And they have these bright lights that go tens of metres. and they found that they were in amongst this field of whale fossils and whale carcasses. Wow. So over the course of about a month, they did 32 dives in this deep sea area and they came across millions of bones, 485 sites.

2:14They found 485 fossil sites and five recently fallen whale carcass sites as well. So the extraordinary thing was that I was asking the researcher how it felt when he first looked at the window, at the cameras and saw what was outside his submersible. And he just said it was actually like a little bit scary, but incredibly fascinating just to see all these whale bones just outside the window. And they managed using the robotic arms of this submersible to bring 43 of these fossils up to the surface where they've dated them. And this is where it gets really incredible. So even though these fossils are sitting just on the seafloor, they are up to 5.3 million years old.

3:10Wow. So it's an ancient burial site, but it is an ancient graveyard. I just think that, yeah, when you're seven kilometres down anyway, it must be that, I mean, you get used to it, but there must be this incredible sense of adventure. I mean, I can't even imagine it. I've been diving, but to be seven kilometres down and then you can just imagine the light picking out all these giant bones that go on for miles. What an experience that must have been. Personally, it sounds absolutely terrifying to me. Terrifying, but thrilling, that thrilling and terrifying. Do they know why are they all here? I mean, obviously, I said burial.

3:55It was a slip of the tongue to say burial site. But why have all these bones gathered in this area? Well, they put forward a few different reasons. One of them is that there is plentiful food in that Diamantina zone. And what they think is that possibly most of the whale fossils are beaked whales. And so they actually are known to be able to dive down to at least three kilometres. And what they think might be happening is that some of these whales are just going beyond their physiological limits and perhaps getting decompression sickness or some other effects from just being so deep down. It's also a known migration route.

4:40So that area between Australia and the Antarctic is well known for whales. But then also just the natural geography of the Diamantina zone, it kind of funnels, it would funnel any falling carcasses. If they landed on the steep ridges or whatever, they would be funneled down onto the bottom of the sea floor there. Wow. Okay. So it's a factor of geology as well that they've kind of built up in this region. Yeah, but one of the things that really, really surprised me is that it's not just this array of whales. And one of the whale fossils that they've actually discovered is a species that's completely new to science.

5:27But there's also on the recently fallen carcasses, there's an entire ecosystem of bone-boring worms, brittle stars. and some of those are at densities of nearly 3 ,000 per square metre and they're feeding on these whale carcasses but they also appear to be mostly new species to science. Wow. Yeah, I mean, I know we are learning new stuff about the deep ocean every time we go down there but one thing we have been learning a lot about is the importance of whales to the nutrient pump, the biological pump that they call it, to cycle nutrients from, because the ocean, most of the oceans are very nutrient poor.

6:14And whales play such an important role in cycling nutrients. But also themselves, when they die, as you're saying that, you know, a whale carcass is an incredible amount of food and supports this whole other exotic, strange, but very rich ecosystem. And as you say, because the bones can take so long to decay, this ecosystem can persist for a long time. So it's no wonder everything down there is going to be very strange and no wonder they're finding new species. Well, and it's a place where there's not much food. So suddenly having 20 tonnes or 40 tonnes of meat land at your doorstep would be a welcome gift, I'd imagine.

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8:11So tell us about some of the other things they found down there. Yeah, so they found a five metre long Antarctic minke whale. They found most of the fossils So they managed to bring up, as I said They managed to bring up 43 of the fossil whale specimens And they were able to determine that most of those Most of those fossils are from two living beaked whale species They were able to work out that the fossils were between 120 ,000 and as I said 5.3 million and then you've also got the recently fallen carcasses like the Antarctic minke whale which effectively you know very very recent so the other thing that they worked out down there and the reason why these bones are just still sitting on the sea floor is that you're talking about a sedimentation rate of just 0.05, I can't remember whether it's a millimetre or a centimetre, every thousand years.

9:24I think it's a millimetre every thousand years. So you're talking about an environment where things don't change very quickly at all. A lot of the fossils also come from the beaks of these whales, which one of the researchers described to me as being like armor. It's armor plated. And so it's not super attractive or easy for these bone boring worms to actually decompose. This is 2.5 kilometers deeper than any other known whale fall site anywhere else in the world. But the other thing is that for a long time, trawlers have been bringing up fossil whale bones so one of the things that the researchers do actually think is that although this is the deepest one they've ever found they expect that as they continue on these expeditions looking into the hadal zone which is those deep oceans below six kilometers that they are going to continue to find more and more sites like this but we're talking about a whale necropolis or graveyard that stretches for 1200 kilometers it's stunning and you mentioned beaked whales so as the name implies they have this uh a beak their their face turns into a beak at the end and that bit is what they use to feed so that's the particularly strengthened bone and this is the bit that takes so long to to decay and that's the bit that that's especially the bits that they're finding down there.

11:05Correct, yes. The other thing this makes me think of is I would love, I mean, this is getting a bit out there, but I would love them to record some of the noises that are going on, not at the depth where there's all dead whales, but like during the migration, because I wonder if the whales are aware that this is a region where there's a graveyard. I mean, it's not beyond the realms of possibility that this sort of information is passed on between whales and it might be communicated in their language. So that is going a bit far, but I would love them to start thinking about that, investigating that during the migration of these whales.

11:44Well, you know, the more we find out about whales, the more intelligent, the more socially sophisticated we're learning that they are. And it is hard to imagine that such sophisticated animals don't have some kind of knowledge of the dangers that that region poses. And, you know, and I guess, you know, if they're swimming along and suddenly Uncle Joe or Aunty May disappears, then they must kind of wonder where they've gone. Yeah, yeah. And we know that they have an awareness of death. They respond to death. We've seen mourning behaviour in them. So, yeah, I think it's a fascinating thing to think about.

12:25What an amazing discovery. James, thanks for joining us today. That's all for today. Do follow and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and we'll see you next time. Bye for now.

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