A gigantic coral reef, taller than the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, has been found at Australia’s Great Barrier Reef (GBR), about 130km off Cape York in Queensland. It stands 500 meters tall (1,640ft) and is the first such discovery in 120 years.
The expedition’s principal investigator Tom Bridge, from James Cook University’s ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, said:
It’s a big reef not to have known about. What it highlights is how little we know about a lot of the ocean, even the GBR. The marine park is 344,000 square kilometers – bigger than many European countries – and only about 6 or 7% of that is typical shallow-water reefs. We know more about the surface of the moon than we know about what lies in the depths beyond our coastlines.
The “blade-like” skyscraper reef is detached from the main body of the GBR. It’s 1.5km wide at its base and rises to within 40 meters of the surface. The scientists found it while on a year-long mission conducting 3D mapping of the seafloor.
The team working aboard a research vessel owned by the California-based non-profit group Schmidt Ocean Institute (SOI) used an underwater robot (called SuBastian) to explore the reef further.
Expedition leader Rob Beaman said:
To not only map the reef in 3D detail but to also see this discovery with SuBastian is incredible.
SuBastian live-streamed video footage of the discovery and posted it to youtube. You can watch the video below.
SOI executive director Dr. Jyotika Virmani said:
To find a new half-a-kilometer tall reef in the offshore Cape York area of the well-recognized Great Barrier Reef shows how mysterious the world is just beyond our coastline. This powerful combination of mapping data and underwater imagery will be used to understand this new reef and its role within the incredible Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area.
The newly discovered reef has an abundance of sea fans, sponges, and soft coral in its upper section, but not many hard corals. Such composition suggests the area is rich in nutrients carried by upwellings of deep waters and strong currents. The reef is home to a variety of fish, including grey reef sharks and tiny hatchet fish, and silvertip.
SOI co-founder Wendy Schmidt said:
This unexpected discovery affirms that we continue to find unknown structures and new species in our ocean. The state of our knowledge about what’s in the ocean has long been so limited. Thanks to new technologies that work as our eyes, ears, and hands in the deep ocean, we can explore like never before. New ocean-scapes are opening to us, revealing the ecosystems and diverse life forms that share the planet with us.
The institute has also discovered up to thirty new species during its voyage this year, as well as the longest recorded sea creature – a 45m-long siphonophore found in a canyon off Australia’s West Coast in April.
The GBR is the world’s largest coral reef. It’s home to over 411 species of hard corals and 1,500 species of fish, among other things. Unfortunately, the marvel of nature has suffered extensive damage by the warming sea temperature in recent years. Unprecedented bleaching events have caused the GBR to lose more than 50% of its coral since 1995. If nothing is done to tame climate change, the reef could be gone by the end of the century.
