The relatively recent discovery of deep sea coral reefs a few years ago has stimulated a rush of interest and research in recent years. The big question everyone wants to know is how these reefs are formed and what these corals eat. Studies carried out by Furu Miendis on reefs up to a kilometer down on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge in the central Atalantic Ocean found that many of these reefs occur on large carbonate mounds. The large mounds may be up to 200,000 yrs old and they are fortuitously placed to receive direct flows of surface water which are what the researcher described as “Highways of Food” because they bring a lot of phyto and zooplankton to the deep sea corals. Visit ScienceDaily for more information on this story.
