Huge coral reef taller than the Empire State Building discovered on the Great Barrier Reef

A huge detached reef measuring over 500 meters high has been discovered on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, the first to have been found in over 120 years.

The reef was found on October 20 during an underwater mapping expedition of the northern section of the Great Barrier Reef sea floor. After the initial dive, researchers from the Schmidt Ocean Institute made another expedition to the site to confirm the discovery.

“This unexpected discovery states that we continue to find unknown structures and new species in our ocean,” Wendy Schmidt, co-founder of the Schmidt Ocean Institute, said in a statement. “The state of our knowledge of what’s in the ocean has long been so limited. Thanks to new technologies that work like our eyes, ears and hands in the deep ocean, we have the ability to explore like never before. now. New ocean landscapes are opening up to us, revealing the ecosystems and different life forms that share the planet with us. “

The reef base is nearly 5,000 feet wide and 1,600 feet high, taller than the Empire State Building. Its peak lies just 130 feet below the ocean’s surface. Footage of the discovery was streamed live and can be viewed below.

It is one of seven other detached coral reefs in the region that have been mapped since the late 19th century.

At nearly 133,000 square miles, the Great Barrier Reef is the largest living structure in the world. It includes approximately 3,000 coral reefs, 600 mainland islands and 150 coastal mangrove islands. It stretches from the northern tip of Queensland to the town of Bundaberg, approximately 1,500 miles.

The Great Barrier Reef is currently under threat, with climate change causing widespread damage to the ecosystem through an increase in extreme weather events and coral bleaching. This is where warm temperatures put the coral under stress, causing the algae to expel, making them white. While this doesn’t necessarily kill the algae, it leaves them vulnerable. Prolonged or repeated bleaching events can kill coral reefs.

A report from the ARC Center of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies released in early October showed that the Great Barrier Reef has lost half of its corals since the mid-1990s. Andy Dietzel, who led the research published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, said the results show that the Great Barrier Reef’s ability to recover from extreme events is impaired and a better understanding of the system is urgently needed.

Researchers from the Schmidt Ocean Institute are currently conducting a year-long exploration project looking at the waters off the Australian coast. The journey into the northern depths, during which the last coral reef was found, will last until November 17.

The maps created as part of the project will be made available on a national seabed mapping program.

“Finding a new half-kilometer-high coral reef in the off Cape York area of ​​the famous Great Barrier Reef shows how mysterious the world just beyond our coast is,” Jyotika Virmani, executive director of the Schmidt Ocean Institute said in a statement. “This powerful combination of cartographic data and underwater imagery will be used to understand this new reef and its role within the incredible Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area.”