A new coral reef higher than Eiffel Tower found at Great Barrier Reef

It’s an exciting news amidst all the recent concerns about depleting coral population on the Great Barrier Reef, one of the wonders of our earth.

• Researchers have recently found a large, detached coral reef, measuring more than 500 meters (1,640 feet) in height, in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park in Australia.
• This is the eighth known detached coral reef in the area, and the first to be discovered in the past 120 years.
• While little is known about these reefs, scientists have observed that they host an array of marine life.
• This particular reef doesn’t appear to have been affected by the recent bleaching events at the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, according to the lead researcher.

Australian scientists found a detached coral reef on the Great Barrier Reef that exceeds the height of the Empire State Building and the Eiffel Tower, the Schmidt Ocean Institute said this week, the first such discovery in over 100 years.

The “blade like” reef is nearly 500 metres tall and 1.5 kilometres wide, said the institute founded by ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt and his wife Wendy. It lies 40 metres below the ocean surface and about six kilometres from the edge of Great Barrier Reef.

A team of scientists from James Cook University, led by Dr. Robin Beaman, were mapping the northern seafloor of the Great Barrier Reef on board the institute’s research vessel Falkor, when they found the reef on Oct. 20.

“We are surprised and elated by what we have found,” said Beaman.

He said it was the first detached reef of that size to be discovered in over 120 years and that it was thriving with a “blizzard of fish” in a healthy ecosystem.

The discovery comes after a study earlier this month found the Great Barrier Reef had lost more than half its coral in the last three decades.

Using the underwater robot known as SuBastian, the scientists filmed their exploration of the new reef, collecting marine samples on the way, which will be archived and placed in the Queensland Museum and the Museum of Tropical Queensland.

Remotely operated vehicle (ROV), the ROV SuBastian, was dropped to the base of the reef and then it worked its way up, capturing the entire process in 4K video and collecting biological samples. Beaman said the ROV process was a bit like “mountain climbing,” but in the sea.

“To not only 3D map the reef in detail, but also visually see this discovery with SuBastian is incredible,” Beaman added.

“There was marine life all the way up the reef, but near the summit where waters are warmer and sunlit, there was a thriving shallow coral reef ecosystem — healthy looking coral colonies, a blizzard of coral fish and large sharks circling,” Beaman said.

Although the northern section of the Great Barrier Reef suffered from bleaching in 2016, Beaman said this detached reef didn’t display any evidence of damage.

Bleaching occurs when the water is too warm, forcing coral to expel living algae and causing it to calcify and turn white.

There are seven other known detached reefs in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, including the reef at Raine Island, one of the world’s largest sea turtle rookeries.

“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,” Jyotika Virmani, executive director of the Schmidt Ocean Institute, said in a statement. “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 Great Barrier Reef runs 2,300 km (1,429 miles) down Australia’s northeast coast spanning an area half the size of Texas. It is also renowned for being the biggest single structure made by living organisms in the whole wide world. It was world heritage listed in 1981 by UNESCO as the most extensive and spectacular coral reef ecosystem on the planet.

Recently it was said, according to a recent study, in the past three decades, the reef has lost almost half of its coral population.

The study was conducted by the researchers from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies in Queensland, Australia. The study was conducted between 1995 and 2017 and the researchers assessed the coral communities and their colony size in the reef which comprises 2900 individual reeds and 900 islands spread over 2300 km (length of the Great Barrier Reef)!

In the study, it was found that the number of small, medium and large corals have significantly reduced during the period of 30 years. The reef, located in the Coral Sea of Queensland is so big that it can be seen from outer space.