After a scientific expedition launched video of what seems an terrible lot like a brick path on the seafloor, the New York Post asked, “Have researchers found an undersea road to the lost city of Atlantis?” No, in fact they haven’t. But they did discover a neat pure phenomenon linked to underwater volcanoes.

Researchers aboard the E/V Nautilus made the sighting on April 23 whereas piloting a remotely operated sub at the Nootka Seamount within the Pacific Ocean, northwest of Hawaii. After accumulating rock samples utilizing the ROV’s mechanical arms, they descended to a depth of over 3,375 ft (1,029 meters)—and that’s after they noticed the unusually geometric construction.

The staff was completely baffled by the sighting. “The yellow brick road?” one in all them suggests within the video’s real-time narration. “It’s the road to Atlantis!” one other jokes.

Actually, the “road” is hyaloclastite rock, in response to a fact sheet from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Ocean Exploration Trust. This sort of rock is fashioned from the lava of high-energy volcanic eruptions, which quickly cools when it makes contact with ocean water. The staff, who initially suspected it was the remnants of a dried lake bed, thinks that the stress from the speedy cooling course of could possibly be the explanation for the 90-degree cracks that give the rock deposit its brick-like look.

At the time the staff noticed the rock characteristic, the E/V Nautilus was on a NOAA-funded expedition within the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, an expanse of open ocean dotted with a number of islands, reefs, and atolls. Scientists aboard the vessel had been investigating the biodiversity of underwater hotspots and accumulating rock samples from the ocean ground.

Nautilus wrapped up the expedition on the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument earlier this month and is now embarking on the Ocean Exploration Cooperative Institute Technology Integration expedition, throughout which scientists will take a look at methods to discover the ocean with out human intervention.

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