The researchers found that the underwater rivers are a regular occurrence during the fall and winter months in Australia across a span of 6,213 miles (10,000 kilometers). In the new study, the researchers also found that the underwater rivers could withstand high winds and high tides that often stir up the water, a finding that's a "unique occurrence globally," the authors wrote in the study.
The underwater gliders were also equipped with sensors to detect organic matter and chlorophyll, a green pigment found in plants, algae and cyanobacteria. The underwater rivers in Australia, they found, serve as transport channels for material and matter across the continental shelf and deeper into the ocean. "The coastal ocean is the receiving basin for suspended and dissolved matter that includes nutrients, plant and animal matter and pollutants. and represents an important component of the ocean environment, connecting the land to the deeper ocean," senior author Yasha Hetzel, a researcher at The University of Western Australia's Oceans Graduate School, said in the statement.