That's no shipwreck! The mysterious 'giant flowers' at the bottom of the ocean that baffled Government scientists



Team thought they had found a large shipwreck

Instead found cluster of 'really big structures' at a depth of 1,900 meters in the Gulf of Mexico

Massive rocks splayed out over the seabed in the shape of an enormous flower

Government scientists have uncovered a bizarre series of 'giant flowers' on the ocean floor while investigating a shipwreck.

Researchers say sonar showed a cluster of 'really big structures' at a depth of 1,900 meters in the Gulf of Mexico, which the team thought was a shipwreck.

They send a robot submarine to investigate - and were revealed massive rocks splayed out over the seabed in the shape of an enormous flower, with a mystery black substance leaking out of it.

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After documenting the first asphault extrusion, D2 investigated a second sonar anomaly which turned out to be another "tar lily".

WHAT IS IT? Researchers believe the structures are asphalt volcanoes.

Volcanoes form when material expelled from deep within the Earth creates a large structure standing above the surrounding land or seascape.

Glowing streams of molten rock are what most people think of when they hear the word volcano.

But eruptions of mud, shale, and salt are also known to form volcanoes. The discovery is the first time asphalt volcanoes have been spotted across the Gulf.

NOAA explorers steered their remotely operated vehicle, Deep Discoverer (D2), to the structures, and researchers initially thought the forms were rocks.

However, parts were rounded like they had been squeezed out of a tube and there were dozens of cracks and fissures revealing a smooth black substance.



'Within a few minutes, the scientists on the dive realized that they were looking at a much unexpected example of an asphalt volcano,' the NOAA said.



Volcanoes form when material expelled from deep within the Earth creates a large structure standing above the surrounding land or seascape.



Glowing streams of molten rock are what most people think of when they hear the word “volcano.”



But eruptions of mud, shale, and salt are also known to form volcanoes.

In 2004, scientists on the German ship F/V SONNE reported asphalt volcanoes 3,000 meters deep in the southern Gulf of Mexico.



Later reports confirmed similar asphalt volcanoes off the coast of California and West Africa.



Today’s discovery expands the number of known examples and confirms the existence of an asphalt ecosystem across the Gulf.

After documenting the first asphault extrusion, D2 investigated a second sonar anomaly which turned out to be another 'tar lily'.



A 'petal' of the flower - with a the shrimp hiding in it

The asphalt at this site is produced by the same processes that generate oil and gas, but has been transformed by geology and then altered again when it is exposed to cold seawater.



The Gulf is full of oil platforms that drill into reservoirs of oil and gas and pump it ashore for energy.

Some reservoirs are so old that the oil they contain has been “cooked” for millions of years.



Heating causes the volatile components to evaporate, leaving behind a thick, gooey remnant.



Think of how you could dissolve grease in gasoline, and what would be left behind if all the gasoline then evaporated.

In refineries, the gooey residue that remains after extraction of gasoline and other products is mixed with sand and then mixed with lighter oil and heated up to make it flexible enough to pave roads.



At a deep-sea asphalt volcano, the material is squeezed out in huge ropey masses that bend and flow.



The massive massive rocks splayed out over the seabed in the shape of an enormous flower, with a mystery black substance leaking out of them.

In the cold seawater, the remaining volatiles dissolve and the extrusions shrink in volume.



At some critical point, the asphalt cannot flow anymore.

Cracks and fractures form.

This process would explain the basics of what the NOAA explorers discovered today.



A massive plug was squeezed out at the seafloor. It then split into separate extensions that continued to flow until they became brittle and cracked apart.



Once the petals of the giant lily were in place, animals that like hard surfaces had a new home.

The presence of chemosynthetic tube worms at the site led scientists to believe that there was more to this site than what we could see, and the team now hopes to return tot he area