Silent river runs deep!
And how so …
Wikipedia has been quick to register an account of something that I saw on the The Daily Telegraph website on the 1st August, 2010.
That is:
Researchers working in the Black Sea have found currents of water 350 times greater than the River Thames flowing along the sea bed, carving out channels much like a river on the land.
The undersea river, which is up to 115ft deep in places, even has rapids and waterfalls much like its terrestrial equivalents.
If found on land, scientists estimate it would be the world’s sixth largest river in terms of the amount of water flowing through it.
The researchers at the University of Leeds in England used a robotic submarine to carry out the investigations, as their news item explains.
These channels are the main transport pathway for sediments to the deep sea where they form sedimentary deposits. These deposits ultimately hold not only untapped reserves of gas and oil, they also house important secrets – from clues on past climate change to the ways in which mountains were formed.
Now the team, led by Dr Dan Parsons and Dr Jeff Peakall from the University of Leeds, has been able to study the detailed flow within these channels. Dr Parsons, said: “The channel complex and the density flow provide the ideal natural laboratory for investigating and detailing the structure of the flow field through the channel.
Fascinating!
Black Sea underground 'river'.
By Paul Handover
Paul Handover
