Scientists continue to impress us. Researchers who made new discoveries, this time, found a strange hot liquid from the ocean floor near the US state of Oregon. But this hot liquid sounds rather strange and surprising. That’s because the liquid is said to gush out “like a fire hose.” Not to mention it is suspected that it may provide some clues about earthquake activity in the Pacific Northwest.
NAME: “PYTHIA’S OASIS”
Researchers led by the University of Washington named the first-of-its-kind discovery “Pythia’s Oasis,” reports IFL Science.
According to the information obtained, the team, located about 80 kilometers off the coast of Newport, detected unexpected bubble clouds emerging from the ocean floor about 1.2 kilometers below the ocean surface using ship sonar.
Upon further investigation, this liquid is chemically different from the surrounding water, with high amounts of boron and lithium; turned out to contain less chloride, potassium and magnesium.
“SOMETHING I HAVE NEVER SEEN BEFORE AND AS I KNOW HAS NEVER BEEN OBSERVED”
Evan Solomon, associate professor of oceanography at the University of Washington, co-author of the study, said: “They did research in this direction, and what they saw was not just methane bubbles, but water coming out of the seafloor like a fire hose. This is something I’ve never seen before and as far as I know. something that has not been observed,” he said.
Even weirder, this liquid was about 9 degrees hotter than the background temperature. The sharp temperature difference indicated that the liquid originated from the Cascadia mega thrust deep within the Earth’s surface.
The team suspects this fluid plays a role in Earth’s ever-changing tectonic activity, given its deep underground origins.
The study was published in the journal Science Advances.
(Photos source: Science Advances)