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Australian scientists have discovered a detached reef more than 500 meters high – higher than the Empire State Building – at the northern end of the Great Barrier Reef.
The vertical “blade-like” reef some 130km off Cape York, Australia’s northeastern tip, was found during a 3D seafloor mapping exercise conducted by a ship owned by the Schmidt Ocean Californian non-profit institute.
Tom Bridge, of the ARC Center of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University and the expedition’s principal investigator, said the reef was 1.5 kilometers wide at its base and rose from half a kilometer to 40 meters. from the surface.
It is the first detached great barrier reef found in the area since the late 19th century, when seven more were discovered over a 150km stretch of ocean, Bridge said.
“It’s a great barrier reef that I wouldn’t have known about,” Bridge said.
“What it highlights is how little we know about much of the ocean, even with the Great Barrier Reef. The marine park is 344,000 square kilometers – larger than many European countries – and only about 6 or 7% of these are typical shallow-water reefs.
“We know more about the surface of the moon than we know about what lies deep beyond our shores.”
Detached coral reefs are located on the ocean floor on the continental shelf but are not part of the main body of the Great Barrier Reef.
The newly discovered reef does not appear to have many hard corals at its top, but it does boast “an incredible abundance” of sponges, sea fans and soft corals, suggesting that the area is rich in nutrients carried by strong currents and rising waters. deep. Bridge said the camera on the underwater robot used to explore the reef showed that it was home to many reef fish, including small hatchet and silver-tip fish, and gray reef sharks.
The video of the discovery of the robot, known as SuBastian, was live streamed and posted on YouTube. “Not only mapping the reef in 3D detail, but also seeing this discovery with SuBastian is amazing,” said the expedition leader, Rob Beaman.
The discovery is likely to lead to years of study. Schmidt Ocean Institute’s ship, the Falkor, has been exploring the oceans surrounding Australia for a year. Scientists aboard the ship intend to continue mapping the Northern Great Barrier Reef until the middle of next month.
The institute said early discoveries on the voyage included what is believed to be the longest recorded marine creature, a 45-meter siphonophore, in a canyon off the coast of Ningaloo in northern Western Australia. He said he found potentially dozens of species yet to be described, including black coral, sponges and rockfish.
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