Scientists find world's sixth largest river - at the bottom of Black Sea

London, August 2 (ANI): British scientists have discovered a 115-feet deep river, more than half a mile wide - at the bottom of Black Sea.

The flow - carrying highly salty water and sediment - is 350 times greater than the Thames, according to a Leeds University team who used a robotic submarine to scan the seabed near Turkey.

It stems from salty water spilling through the Bosphorus Strait from the Mediterranean into the Black Sea, where the water has a lower salt content.

This causes the dense water from the Mediterranean to flow like a river along the seabed, carving a channel and deep banks.

'It flows down the sea shelf and out into the abyssal plain much like a river on land," The Daily Mail quoted Dr Dan Parsons as telling the Sunday Telegraph.

He added that these channels could deliver nutrients and ingredients needed for life out over these deserts - supporting marine life in the deep oceans.

This is the first discovery that shows currents of water flowing through the river.

It meanders like rivers on land and forms banks in the same way by eroding the silt from the bottom of the channel and building it up at the edges.

Parsons said data from the research would also be important for oil companies looking to drill in areas where these rivers exist. (ANI)