Over the past few years, one of the biggest concerns for those in the marine and environmental industry has been the drastic reduction in the amount of coral. Due to rising ocean water temperatures, much of the coral across the world has no longer been able to survive and has been drastically shrinking. Since the coral reef has been a spot for other fish species to get food, it threatens other marine life as well.
While there has been a lot of concern over marine life in the ocean water, scientists were shocked when they found a whole new coral off the coast of the United States (https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/27/us/giant-coral-reef-atlantic-coast-trnd/index.html). The new coral was found about 160 miles off the coast of Charleston, SC. The coral reef is considered very deep in the ocean water of the Atlantic and has been a complete surprise to scientists.
The new coral reef discovery is likely to be just one of many over the next few years. Scientists and environmentalists acknowledged that they did not know very much about the Atlantic Ocean off of the southeast coast of the United States. Because of this, a new project called Deep Search 2018 was recently funded and started to discover more about what exactly is below the ocean waters.
Now that it has been discovered, the next step is to consider whether or not this will have any impact on recent political changes that have rolled back restrictions on offshore drilling. Since this is an area of the ocean water where drilling could take place, it could be a concern if the drilling continues as it could threaten overall marine life in the area.
The scientists that found the coral were very surprised by the discovery. While there is a lot of work left to do to fully assess and analyze the coral, those that made the discovery have stated that it is “huge” and is considered to be one of the larger such coral reefs in the world.
The first mission funded will be a 15-day tour and will include a variety of different professionals from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the US Geological Survey, all of which will spend their time of the ship called the Atlantis. It is now expected that additional missions to the area will take place to further analyze the coral that was found.
