The largest shark known to us, Megalodon, is extinct. Or IS it? Carcharodon Megalodon, commonly known as Megalodon, is believed to have lived between 1million and 5 million years ago and thought to have been 52 feet long. It is (or was) a shark that had a jaw 7 or more feet wide. Fairly recently, there has been some speculation about whether it is extinct or just out of reach. Some people believe that Megalodon has found a home deep in the ocean. There are many known "Living Fossils": Coelacanth (last month's article), Sea Cucumbers, Sea Urchins, Lobsters, Sea Stars (starfish). The common ones like lobsters and sea urchins are not really looked on as anything amazing. They've been around for thousands of years or more, and are easily accessible to us. What if they weren't accessible and yet still existed? We would label them extinct. The discovery of a live Coelacanth, a fish long believed extinct, challenged some scientists' long-held beliefs on extinction. There have been recent discoveries of incredibly large squid, and deep-sea fish never before seen by scientists.
In the 1960's the US Navy set up underwater microphones around the world to track Soviet submarines. The network, known as the Sound Surveillance System, still lie deep below the ocean's surface in a layer of water known as the "deep sound channel." The temperature and pressure of the channel allow sound waves to travel undisturbed. NOAA's (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's) Acoustic Monitoring Project has been using the Sound Surveillance System to listen for changed in ocean structure like ocean currents or volcanic activity. Most of the sounds recorded are common and of no concern. One though, identified in 1977 by US Navy "spy" sensors, was odd. It was obviously a marine animal but the call was more powerful than any of the calls made by any other reported sea creature. It was too big for a whale. Could it be a deep-sea monster? One possibility was a giant squid, but no one is sure. It was named "Bloop". Could it be Megalodon?
Why do people think there was a shark this size in the first place? Teeth. 7" to 8" shark teeth have been found in many places in the world. There are so many of these, in fact, that people make a decent living just finding them and selling them. The websites below are just a few of the many out there that are doing business:
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