Nature & Environment

Researchers have discovered the world's largest known whale graveyard

By T.K. Randall
June 13, 2026

Image: AI-generated (Midjourney) Due to the depth of the ocean, when a large creature such as a whale dies and its remains sink to the ocean floor, it is usually very rare for any human deep-sea explorer to come across them.

Even rarer, is finding several in the same place.

This, however, was what researchers from China recently discovered in the Indian Ocean along an area known as the Diamantina Zone - a 1,200km stretch of deep-sea ridges and trenches.Within this region, the team found five separate whale falls, as well as hundreds of cetacean falls.

What makes the discovery particularly significant is that there is evidence that this particular area has acted as a sort of 'whale graveyard' for a very long time.

Among the remains were fossils dating back 5.3 million years, as well as the skull of an extinct species of beaked whale that was, until now, totally unknown to science.

"These findings reshape our understanding of the limits and biogeography of whale-fall ecosystems and establish some deep-sea floors as a fossil archive for tracing cetacean evolution over geological time," said study lead author Xikun Song.

Source: ABC.net.au

Tags: Whale