Canyon found in bay off Kovvada

​Visakhapatnam: Kovvada, a small hamlet in Srikakulam district is in the global news. A canyon was discovered in the Bay of Bengal close to its coast by the scientists of CSIR-National Institute of Oceanography. The scientists are excited by the new discovery since it was found to be deeper than Grand Canyon of US. The scientists are also of the opinion that the canyons could be rich in hydrocarbons

Acting director of National Institute of Oceanography Dr S Prasanna Kumar, briefing the media here on Thursday, said for the first time they could map the floor between Visakhapatnam and Srikakulam by sending over 32 high density beam echoes into the depths of the sea.

Canyon systems are generally formed by flow of river water into the sea and they could be as old as the river system, which is close to 23 million years. But what makes the finding interesting is that they could locate and clearly map a new system in the Bay of Bengal off the coast.

Dr Prasanna Kumar said the last canyon systems off the Visakhapatnam coast was discovered by American geologist EC LaFond of US Navy Electronics Laboratory in 1963, while he was pursuing marine studies at Andhra University and the data was collected onboard research ship Anton Bruun.

He then used single beam echo where as now 32 beams from either side of the ship were sent.Prof. LaFond then discovered three canyon systems between Visakhapatnam and few kilometers north of Bheenumipatnam and they were named as Andhra after Andhra University, Mahadevan after Prof Mahadevan who is considered to be the father of Geology in India and Krishna after the then Vice-Chancellor of AU Prof. V S Krishna, said Dr VSN Murthy, scientist in-charge of NIO-Visakhapatnam.

Prof. LaFond had then stated that there were three other canyon systems but there was no proof. “But now we have now discovered them and also prominently mapped them with the help of state-of-the-art facilities on board RV Sindhu Sankalp, research vessel,” said chief scientist, NIO-Mumbai, Dr AK Chaubey.

Chief geologist on board RV Sindhu Sankalp Dr PS Rao said the new canyon system is very huge and probably formed by river Kandivalasa.

The depth of the canyon vary from about 90 meter from the starting point to about 3,000 meters at the deepest point and it extends to about 50 to 70 km deep into the sea and the width varied from 50 metre to 2 km.

As per the findings the depth is more than the Grand Canyon, which is about 1,857 metre, Prasanna Kumar said. The discovery will allow the scientists to study the underwater ecological system and it will benefit all spheres of science, he added.