Researchers from Columbia University and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution spent 10 days towing electromagnetic sensors from New Jersey to Massachusetts and discovered something very unusual under the ocean: a sea of fresh water underneath all that salt water.
By measuring the way electromagnetic waves traveled through fresh and saline water, researchers mapped out fresh-water reservoirs for the first time.
It turns out the subterranean pools stretch for at least 50 miles off the US Atlantic coast, containing vast stores of low-salinity groundwater, about twice the volume of Lake Ontario. The deposits begin about 600 ft (183 m) below the seafloor and stretch for hundreds of miles. That rivals the size of even the largest terrestrial aquifers.
Image Credit: REUTERS/DYLAN MARTINEZ