'Remarkable' Huge New Coral Reef Discovered Off Tahiti
By Maddy Chapman
21 Jan 2022, 17:27
A huge, “pristine” coral reef has been discovered off the coast of Tahiti, French Polynesia. Stretching 3 kilometers (nearly 2 miles) – that’s around 27 football fields – it is thought to be one of the biggest coral reefs in the world.
It is also one of the healthiest, which the scientists who discovered it as part of UNESCO’s ocean mapping initiative attribute to the great depth at which it was found. Most of the world’s known reefs are at depths of up to 25 meters (82 feet), whereas the newest member is located between 30 and 65 meters (98 to 213 feet) below the ocean’s surface. The extra few meters, the team believes, could be protecting it from bleaching caused by global warming.
Known as the “twilight zone”, this area of deep ocean is rarely studied, making it a potential untapped resource for discovering coral reefs, which the team hopes can be explored in future.
“To date, we know the surface of the Moon better than the deep ocean. Only 20 percent of the entire seabed has been mapped,” Audrey Azoulay, UNESCO Director-General, said in a statement.
https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/remarkable-huge-new-coral-reef-discovered-off-tahiti/
