Five ‘Drowned Apostles' Discovered Off The Australian Coast
The Twelve Apostles are one of Australia’s most iconic natural landmarks, the eight remaining limestone pillars stand up to 50m tall off the southern coast of Victoria and draw tens of thousands of visitors from all over the world each year.
However, it has been discovered that the eight pillars have another five companions that have refused to crumble, standing 4-6m tall at a depth of 50 metres below the water’s surface and just 6km offshore from the Great Ocean Road.
These ‘Drowned Apostles’ are understood to be the first limestone stacks to have been found preserved in the ocean, according to PHD student Rhiannon Bezore who made the discovery alongside Associate Professor David Kennedy from the University of Melbourne’s School of Geography and Deakin University’s Dr Daniel Ierodiaconou.
“It was pretty exciting -- we weren’t really expecting to find these drowned apostles at all,” Bezore told The Huffington Post Australia.
“So seeing them we all had to kind of look at each other and re-confirm we were seeing what we thought we were seeing.”
Bezore said that there was "a lot more life going on down there" than she had expected.
Just like the Twelve Apostles, the newest additions were once part of a larger limestone sea cliff.
