Millions of fossil whale bones found in deep-ocean ‘necropolis’
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- Peng Zhou led a 32‑dive submersible expedition across 1,200 km of the Diamantina Zone, part of the Global Hadal Exploration Programme, to survey the deep seafloor.
- Researchers estimated up to 760 individual whales per square kilometre at the site, dubbing it a “whale necropolis” and a “deep‑sea fossil megasite”.
- Scientists collected 43 fossil specimens dated between 120 k and 5.26 M years, including a new beaked whale species, Pterocetus diamantinae.
- Ferromanganese oxides and the hyper‑dense bone rostra protected the skeletons from degradation, allowing preservation for over 5 million years.
- Bone‑eating worms and brittle stars populated the whale‑fall sites at densities up to 2,800 individuals per square metre.
- Dordrecht Deep lies 1,100 km southwest of Perth, Western Australia, at a depth of 7,002 m, where the first whale fossils were discovered.
- Culum Brown of Macquarie University described the discovery as “amazing” and noted the unprecedented density of whale‑fall remains.
Why it matters: Paleontologists and marine ecologists gain an unprecedented, densely packed fossil record that can illuminate whale evolution and deep‑sea ecosystem dynamics, while the discovery underscores the importance of protecting deep‑sea habitats that host such unique biological archives. It also provides a rare natural laboratory for studying chemosynthetic communities that thrive on whale falls.
