A new coral reef has been discovered off the Galapagos islands. The 1.2 miles-long, 400m deep pristine coral reef was found on the summit of a submarine mountain by a deepwater scientific expedition. Ecuador’s environment minister Jose Davalos declared that “Galapagos surprises us again!”
Before finding this latest find, scientists believed that there was only one surviving reef called Wellington Reef, along the coast of Darwin Island. El Nino wiped out everything else in 1982/83, but the new deepwater discovery shows that at least one other reef survived, and it has over 50% coral coverage.
“This is very important at a global level because many deepwater systems are degraded,” Stuart Banks, Senior marine researcher at the Charles Darwin Foundation, told Reuters. He participated in the expedition and added that this latest deepwater reef is several thousand years old at least.
Famed for giant tortoises, marine iguanas, and Charles Darwin’s discoveries, The Galapagos islands are part of the country of Ecuador. Last year the South American country expanded the Galapagos marine reserve by 60,000 square km (23,166 square miles). 138,000 square km of marine reserve were already in place protecting endangered migratory species between the Galapagos and the Cocos Island in Costa Rica.
Video of the newly discovered reef shows fish, crabs, urchins, brittle stars, anemones, and non-photosynthetic corals.
Image credits UBristol/WHOI/UEssex/UBoise/NERC/NSF/National Park Galapagos/Handout via REUTERS
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