A fast-breeding alien shellfish species in Lake Erie, in the United States, is suffocating hundreds of years of dramatic shipwreck history while also making the water cleaner for exploring divers, says an article published in Mirror.
Historic stricken vessels
Hundreds of antique ships are being encrusted by layers of zebra and quagga mussels in a murky mass graveyard at the bottom of the stormy Lake Erie in the northeast United States.
The wooden ships were so well preserved in the lake’s cool, clear water before the alien species invasion began in the 1980s that wreck divers stated they appeared exactly like they did when they first sank hundreds of years ago.
Fast-breeding mollusks
The fast-breeding mollusks are suffocating the hulls, decks, and spilt cargo from the ships that floundered or crashed in Erie’s shallow waters due to severe winds and waves.
No one knows how many shipwrecks are hidden in the lake, but experts estimate there are between 500 and 2,000, with 277 discovered so far by divers.
Eco-systems
Underwater explorer Kevin Magee, an engineer at NASA’s Glenn Research Center told Earth Observatory : “We think Lake Erie has a greater density of shipwrecks than virtually anywhere else in the world—even the Bermuda triangle.”
The ghostly stripy shellfish, which are native to both Russia and Ukraine, are disrupting the ecosystems of all the Great Lakes on the US-Canada border, which produce more than 20% of the world’s fresh water, but they are also bringing the wrecks to light.
Increase clarity
Kevin said: “They’re filter feeders, so they’ve actually increased the clarity of the water. In many areas, the water is now so clear that we now can get bright, ambient light 200ft below the surface.”
“The downside is that instead of seeing bare wood, original paint, or anything else we’re trying to look at, we just see surfaces covered by lumps of mussels.”
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Source: Mirror
