Fossil hunters in search of the teeth of ancient marine predators will tell you that one of the best blank space to head is the beach . Combing along the shoreline in places like the UK ’s Jurassic Coast can turn up teeth dating back millions of eld ( including thesnout of a 150 - million - year - old “ elephantine ocean monster ” ) – but as a remote - operated vehicle ( ROV ) recently reveal , there are treasure to be found in the deep ocean , too .
During an expedition aboard Exploration Vessel(E / V ) Nautilus , a team of researchers operating the ROV Hercules stumbled across amegalodon(Otodus megalodon ) tooth at a profundity of around 3,090 meters ( 9,842 feet ) within the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument . It was filmedin situbefore being lift out up among some nodules perch on the sea bed .
The megalodon tooth is preserved only as the triangular top , but it ’s signally well preserved as the okay detail of its serrated border are still visible . A jagged - edge tooth fall in handy when hunt for fleshy marine mammals like hulk and mahimahi , as a serrated edge create for theultimate cut tool .
The tooth is coat in parts with a Earth’s crust of manganese , a chemical element that ’s known to develop around fogey nuclei . Manganese nodulesare object of significant interest in the green assault and battery gyration , as some troupe believe harvesting abyssal plain stitch for these hunk that are rich in rare metals could be a less damaging means to source the crude materials involve .
“ 90 per centum of the macrocosm ’s exploration contracts for nodules are in the Clarion - Clipperton Zone , which represent less than half of 1 percent of the global seafloor , ” TMC PR and Media Manager Rory Ushertold IFLScience . “ But this represent the largest source of manganese , nickel note , and atomic number 27 , anywhere on the planet and that dwarfs everything on country by many parliamentary procedure of order of magnitude . There are enough metals in situ at two of the sites that would satisfy the needs of 280 million cars , which represents every car in America , or a twenty-five percent of the mankind ’s vehicle fleet . ”
However , like all exploratory ideas , it’snot without its downsides .
The ferocious tooth has sat on the ocean bottom for at least 3.5 million years , write the researchers , and in that metre may have help as food for a peculiar group of worms . The segmented worm ( segmented worm)Osedax packardorumis known to bore into teeth to feed on dentin pulp , and it ’s possible the giant teeth of megalodon could ’ve served as a hearty repast .
From one marine predatory animal ’s mouth to the Davy Jones’s locker and a 3.5 - million - year wait to be scooped up by a robot , this tooth sure has some taradiddle to tell . Finding fossil in the deep ocean might not be easy , but the researchers say it shows that it ’s worth looking if we ’re pop off to sate in the gaps in our knowledge of these poorly maintain animals .
“ The first in situ documentation of a megatooth shark fogey from the deep sea spotlight the grandness of using forward-looking deep - diving technologies to survey the large and least explored percentage of our sea , ” they conclude .
The study is issue in the journalHistorical Biology .
[ H / T : Science Alert ]
