Incredibly rare deep sea discovery made in area where Bible says Moses parted Red Sea

You've probably never thought of what the bottom of the Red Sea looks like, until now.

Ever curious scientists, however, went and took a look for themselves and shared what they found in a 2022 study.

So the researchers discovered a number of brine pools, which were 4,000 feet below the surface of the Gulf of Aqaba.

Why should we care? Well, brine pools happen to be 10 times saltier than your normal seawater and there's a serious lack of oxygen down there.

These conditions, scientists believe, were what the Red Sea was like during early Earth times.

The undisturbed sediment alone is able to give us more information on what real-life events happened thousands of years ago.

This includes earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, the lot.

When Moses parted the Red Sea

The Passage of the Red Sea Bible Illustration (Historical Picture Archive/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)

The discovery could give us more insight into what the Bible (Exodus 14) describes as Moses parting the Red Sea.

According to Christians, Moses helped the Israelites escape Egyptian slavery by using God's power to raise his staff, splitting the sea.

This allowed safe passage before it closed on the Egyptians, while this event is traditionally dated to around the 15th–13th century BCE.

It's also worth bearing in mind that less than 40 brine pools have ever been found in the Red Sea, which is 1,200 miles long.

Professor Sam Purkis, chair of the Department of Marine Geosciences at the University of Miami, noted that fish which stumble into the brine pools are 'immediately stunned or killed', and predators camp out near the holes to 'feed on the unlucky'.

Researchers were taking a deep look at the bottom of the Red Sea (Getty Stock Images)

Purkis said: "Our current understanding is that life originated on Earth in the deep sea, almost certainly in anoxic - without oxygen - conditions.

"Studying this community hence allows a glimpse into the sort of conditions where life first appeared on our planet, and might guide the search for life on other 'water worlds' in our solar system and beyond.

"Ordinarily, these animals bioturbate or churn up the seabed, disturbing the sediments that accumulate there. Not so with the brine pools. Here, any sedimentary layers that settle to the bed of the brine pool remain exquisitely intact."

"The NEOM Brine Pools, as we name them, extend the known geographical range of Red Sea brine pools, and represent a unique preservational environment for the sedimentary signals of regional climatic and tectonic events," the authors of the Discovery of the deep-sea NEOM Brine Pools in the Gulf of Aqaba, Red Sea added.