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Whale graveyard dating back five million years discovered
Key takeaways
- The site, which is 7km (four miles) deep, has been found in the Diamantina fracture zone, a range on the sea floor of ridges and trenches.
- But it is the age of the remains - some from 5.3 million years ago - that has prompted huge excitement in the scientific community.
- The underwater necropolis, which was discovered by a team of researchers from China, Italy and New Zealand, is teeming with organisms and species that "may be new to science", according to journal Nature.
Why this matters: an international story with cross-border implications worth tracking.
Dan Sales Reinhard Dirscherl/ullstein bild via Getty Images One researcher said the size, depth and age of the discovery was "far beyond anything we had imagined" (file photo) An enormous whale graveyard around 1,200km (745 miles) long has been discovered in the south-eastern Indian Ocean.
The site, which is 7km (four miles) deep, has been found in the Diamantina fracture zone, a range on the sea floor of ridges and trenches.
But it is the age of the remains - some from 5.3 million years ago - that has prompted huge excitement in the scientific community.
Article preview — originally published by BBC World. Full story at the source.
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