Scientists examining the ancient and underwater volcano chain in the Pacific Ocean could not hide their surprise after finding a “yellow brick path”. But this brick road is actually a completely natural formation, the result of volcanic geology that strangely and uniformly breaks up the rock.
Exploring the Ancient Seamounts of the Liliʻuokalani Ridge as part of the Luʻuaeaahikiikekum expedition, the pilots of the E/V Nautilus were the team that made the discovery, which we were able to watch thanks to a published video. The team tried to sample some manganese crust from the seafloor with the help of a robotic arm and had some success.
Using the robotic arm, the team took the opportunity to more closely examine a pile of ferromanganese shells, a marine sedimentary mineral deposit made up of iron and manganese oxides. After the sample was taken, he could not hide his surprise when the ship sailed towards an area that looked surprisingly dry, which they called the “baked shell”, where the paved “yellow brick road” was visible.
“What is this?” one researcher asked. while another said, “The road to Atlantis.”
“What appears to be the ‘yellow brick road’ to the legendary city of Atlantis is indeed an example of ancient active volcanic geology,” the EVNautilus team said on YouTube.” This bizarre geological formation ran along part of the summit of Nootka Seamount, located within the Papahānaumokuakea Marine National Monument. .
At first, it looked like a dried out fragment of a lake bed, but it was later identified as hyaloclastite, a type of volcanic rock found where high-energy eruptions deposited fragments into the seabed. The reason it looks so much like a brick road is because of crushed stone that heats and cools repeatedly over time as more explosions occur in the area.
You can imagine it like the top of a cake. Although the surface is solid, it can rise and fall with heat and cold and cracks can form. This ancient volcanic rock behaves in a similar way, but spans a much longer period of time.
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