A group of scientists were out on a ship called the Nautilus (E/V) in 2022. They were exploring a part of the Pacific most of us will never be able to explore by ourselves—the Liliʻuokalani Ridge, inside the enormous Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument. A place so huge it’s bigger than all the U.S. national parks combined.
Their cameras were moving slowly across the ocean floor, near the top of the Nootka Seamount. And then it appeared.
A path. Bright, golden. The rocks had cracked into neat little rectangles, lined up in rows. It looked just like a yellow brick road.
You can hear the moment it happened. One of the scientists blurted out, “It’s the road to Atlantis!” Another laughed and said, “The yellow brick road?” They couldn’t hide their joy. And why should they? It was simple jaw dropping. Thousands of people were watching the livestream, and for a moment everyone felt the rush of wonder too… Waiting that The Wizard of Oz had been hiding at the bottom of the sea all along.
The truth behind it
Unfortunately, it wasn’t really a road. Nobody built it. What they had found was simply volcanic geology.
A long time ago, lava spilled through that place. When it finally cooled down, the rock broke into cracks. And those types of cracks can form sharp, perfect angles(like in this case), and seen from above, they look like bricks laid down one after another. But it’s just the Earth, doing what have been doing since forever, shaping itself in silence.
There’s no Emerald City this time. No lost Atlantis. But still, the images are pretty impressive, and to see how something Earth have made by itself, looking exactly like a brick road made by humans and leading to a magic world is very interesting.
Where the brick road leads
This yellow brick road doesn’t lead to Oz. It doesn’t lead to Atlantis. But it does lead to curiosity.
Scientist have dug into Mars more carefully than they have mapped our own oceans. And yet, when they look a little deeper, the sea gives us moments like this, a path of stone that feels like it came from a storybook.
Dorothy won’t be walking down this road. But maybe we will, in our imagination. And maybe that’s the gift. The ocean still has secrets. And every so often, it reminds us that we can still find magic in it.
That’s the road worth following.
Nautilus discovery is still really important
The place where this happened makes it even more magical. The Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument is one of the most protected and sacred places in the ocean. And yet, only about 3% of its seafloor has ever been explored. That’s really not much compared to what’s still left to discover.
That means almost everything down there is still a mystery. This brick road being a perfect example.
And that’s why the Ocean Exploration Trust keeps sending Nautilus back. They want to see what’s hidden. And they let us see it too. Every dive is streamed live. So when this “road” appeared, the moment didn’t belong only to the scientists—it belonged to everyone watching from their living rooms, wide-eyed, whispering “wow.”
And if your like me, you know how exciting and fascinating is to be able to watch this types of discoveries with you own eyes, not just reed about it. The rocks were astonishing. But what stayed with people was the reaction.
The scientists didn’t try to stay serious. They laughed. They joked. They sounded amazed. And that’s what made it human. It showed that science isn’t just numbers or charts. It’s wonder. It’s joy.