Explorers left guessing when random artillery shell found in Pacific marine sanctuary
A single artillery shell has been discovered on a submerged mountain in the western Pacific, leaving researchers theorizing as to how it ended up in the middle of nowhere.
The location was a “heavily sedimented” extinct volcano in the Palau National Marine Sanctuary, about 4,700 miles southwest of Hawaii, according to the Ocean Exploration Trust.
A photo posted Tuesday, Nov. 5, shows the shell had been fired and its spent casing was in surprisingly good shape.
“Laying ... 6,689 feet ... beneath the waves, the shell was identified by experts in our Scientist Ashore network as likely from a 40 mm MK-1 Bofors round used by an anti-aircraft gun in ... WWII,” the trust wrote.
That means it has likely been there 80 years.
The identity of the warship that fired it has been lost to time, but the target might also be out there somewhere on the seafloor.
Parts of the Palau archipelago were drawn into World War II, with the island of Peleliu hosting “one of the bloodiest military conflicts of the Pacific” in September 1944, the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command reports.
More than 28,000 members from the 1st Marine Division and 81st Infantry Division “fought and endured a 40 percent casualty rate to liberate the island from over 10,000 Japanese soldiers,” the command says.
Officials say the shell was found in the “eastern corner” of the sanctuary, which is not near Peleliu.
The sanctuary covers 193,000 square miles, making it larger than California, the Pew Charitable Trusts reports.
An 11-day expedition in the region was launched Oct. 29 “to gather seafloor mapping data and explore the seafloor with remotely operated vehicles to illuminate deep sea habitats around Palau,” according to the trust. More than 225 underwater mountains are within the sanctuary, along with “extremely deep ecosystems.”
This story was originally published November 7, 2024 at 4:24 AM with the headline "Explorers left guessing when random artillery shell found in Pacific marine sanctuary."