Scientists have found the world’s largest deep-sea coral reef off the eastern coast of the United States. The massive 6.4 acre area stretches from Miami, Florida up to Charleston, South Carolina. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) this is an area larger than the state of Vermont. The findings were described in a study published January 12 in the journal Geomatics.
[Related: To save coral reefs, color the larvae.]
The Blake Plateau is in the western Atlantic Ocean off the coasts of Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina. Earlier studies of the area found that the region may be a dead zone–an area of the ocean that has less oxygen dissolved in water, which generally kills most of the sea life. During a multi-year mapping project of this perceived dead zone, scientists instead found a very alive ecosystem full of reef-building coral.
“For years we thought much of the Blake Plateau was sparsely inhabited, soft sediment,” study co-author and NOAA Ocean Exploration Operations Chief Kasey Cantwell said in a statement. “Past studies have highlighted some coral in the region, particularly closer to the coast and in shallower waters, but until we had a complete map of the region, we didn’t know how extensive this habitat was, nor how many of these coral mounds were connected.”
There were hints that a massive reef was in the Blake Plateau first found in 2019, but scientists waited until a mapping project from NOAA, the University of New Hampshire, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Temple University, and the US Geological Survey could confirm it to officially announce it. They combined data from over 30 multi-beam sonar…
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