Scientists find reef as long as Delaware
Discovery may affect drilling plans off U.S.
WASHINGTON — Humans have been regularly traversing the Atlantic Ocean for going on six centuries, establishing the most efficient trade routes to haul people and goods, sharing details of the best places to pick up the speediest winds, occasionally using radar and satellites to thread a plane through a Category 5 hurricane.
But for all our knowledge of how to get over the Atlantic, we still know little about what is beneath it.
Exhibit A, it would seem, is a recent discovery 160 miles off the coast of Charleston, S.C.: An enormous series of coral reefs that, combined, are nearly the length of Delaware, which is about 96 miles long. Scientists say it may have been growing on the ocean floor for as long as modern humans have been on the planet.
“This finding changes where we thought corals could exist off the East Coast,” said Erik Cordes, a Temple University biology professor and the expedition’s chief scientist. “And the function of the reefs, in terms of recycling nutrients, is critical to fuel surface productivity and the fisheries we rely on.”
The find is about more than just science. The Trump administration wants to allow the energy industry to drill offshore, and researchers hope to be able to tell policymakers which areas should be offlimits.
The find was made as part of DEEP SEARCH, a fiveyear project to explore the sea off North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia, according to its website, “including deep-water coral reefs and mounts, massive submarine canyons, and cold-seep communities that rely on the energy from natural gas rather than sunlight to fuel productivity.”
Scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the U.S. Geological Survey were curious about something found a month ago by researchers on the vessel Okeanos: mounds of what turned out to be coral debris, with living coral along the top edge.
“We thought that the structure would mostly be rock, and hopefully with live coral cover on top,” Cordes said. They “never dreamed we were looking at structures created almost entirely of coral building up over thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, of years. We have yet to find a single rock on any of these features. Just coral for miles and miles.”
The discovery comes as the administration has proposed rolling back bans on ocean drilling. The move would reinstate offshore drilling leases, and has been publicly opposed by more than 140 municipalities.
In January, the administration unveiled a plan that would permit companies to drill in waters on the U.S. continental shelf, including protected areas of the Atlantic and Arctic oceans.
Cordes said the reef appears to be one of those areas.