Scientists identify mysterious ‘golden orb’ found in Gulf of Alaska in 2023
- Alaska Beacon
- 14 minutes ago
- 3 min read
By Yereth Rosen
Alaska Beacon
When a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration research project discovered a mysterious object more than two miles underwater in the Gulf of Alaska, scientists were puzzled.
Three years later, NOAA officials can now reveal what the object is: the dead cells that formed the base of a big sea anemone.
Scientists found the orb in deep water west of Prince of Wales Island during an ongoing research program called Seascape Alaska. The program began in 2021 and remains ongoing; it is being carried out to fulfil a national ocean-mapping strategy issued in 2020.
There is a pressing need for such research, according to NOAA. Even today, 61% of the U.S. waters off Alaska remain unmapped, according to the agency.
Accurate mapping is also needed to delineate ocean territorial claims, according to NOAA. Work done through the Seascape Alaska program was used by the U.S. State Department in its 2023 claim to extended continental shelf territory in the High Arctic and Bering Sea.
The puzzling golden orb, which was stuck to a rock, was retrieved by a remotely operated vehicle launched from the NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer, the primary vessel being used in the Seascape Alaska program.
At the time, scientists speculated that it might be an egg case or a dead marine sponge.
The process of identifying it turned out to be prolonged, and it involved scientists from NOAA Fisheries and the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.
“We work on hundreds of different samples and I suspected that our routine processes would clarify the mystery,” Allen Collins, a zoologist and director ofNOAA Fisheries’ National Systematics Laboratory, said in a statement released by NOAA. “But this turned into a special case that required focused efforts and expertise of several different individuals. This was a complex mystery that required morphological, genetic, deep-sea and bioinformatics expertise to solve.”
The size and fate of the sea anemone that left the orb is yet unknown, said Emily Crum, a spokesperson for NOAA Ocean Exploration.
The orb is about 4 inches wide, she said by email. The sea anemone species associated with it can grow to large sizes, with tentacles stretching up to 7 feet, she said.
The golden orb was not the only unusual discovery made on the seafloor off Alaska.
In 2024, scientists working aboard the U.S. Coast Guard icebreaking cutter Healy discovered a gas-emitting volcano-like structure rising 500 meters from the seafloor in the Arctic Ocean.
That discovery was also part of the Seascape Alaska program, Crum said.
As the program continues, scientists expect to find more unusual items.
“So often in deep ocean exploration, we find these captivating mysteries, like the ‘golden orb’. With advanced techniques like DNA sequencing, we are able to solve more and more of them,” Capt. William Mowitt, acting director of NOAA Ocean Exploration, said in the NOAA statement. “This is why we keep exploring — to unlock the secrets of the deep and better understand how the ocean and its resources can drive economic growth, strengthen our national security, and sustain our planet.”
• Yereth Rosen came to Alaska in 1987 to work for the Anchorage Times. She has been reporting on Alaska news ever since, covering stories ranging from oil spills to sled-dog races. She has reported for Reuters, for the Alaska Dispatch News, for Arctic Today and for other organizations. Alaska Beacon is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
