A small underwater drone has captured new vision of a historic shipwreck, which is twice the size of a blue whale, off the coast of Western Australia.
The device delved into the depths of the Rottnest ship graveyard in the Indian Ocean, where it captured footage of a 64-metre wreck scattered across the seafloor.
Video and imagery was delivered to researchers at WA Museum, who confirmed the wreckage was more than 100 years old and had been a coal hulk from Fremantle Port.
Eerie images reveal state's oldest European shipwreck
The vision was used to develop a 3D model to illustrate the size of the wreck.
"This is the clearest and most comprehensive data set the WA Museum has received from this particular wreck," WA Museum curator Ross Anderson said.
"This type of high-resolution imagery is invaluable for maritime archaeological research and education on underwater cultural heritage."
Humans have only explored five per cent of the ocean, which is home to about three million undiscovered shipwrecks.
Of those, 1819 are recorded lying off the shore of Western Australia.
Some of the wrecks can be found in the Rottnest graveyard, which is a known burial site for ships, naval vessels, aircraft and secretive submarines from as early as the 1900s.
The sunken ships and aircrafts are between 50 to 200 metres below the surface, leaving the majority of them undiscovered.
Researchers will continue using the underwater drone to explore more of what lies in the Indian Ocean and are hoping to unlock the mystery of the SS Koombana, which vanished into a cyclone off Port Hedland in 1912.
