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CAPE YORK, AUSTRALIA – Scientists have discovered a huge coral reef, taller than the Empire State Building, at the northern end of the Great Barrier Reef.
At more than 500 meters high, the separate reef is the first to be discovered in more than 120 years, the California-based nonprofit Schmidt Ocean Institute announced earlier this week.
This means that the reef is also taller than the Sydney Tower and the Petronas Twin Towers, which measure 305 m and 452 m respectively.
“This unexpected discovery affirms that we continue to find unknown structures and new species in our ocean,” said Ms. Wendy Schmidt, co-founder of the Schmidt Ocean Institute.
The reef was first discovered on October 20 by Australian scientists aboard the institute’s research ship Falkor, currently on a 12-month exploration of the ocean around Australia, while conducting an underwater mapping of the northern seabed Great Barrier Reef.
The team then used a SuBastian underwater robot to explore the new reef.
Dr. Robin Beaman of James Cook University, who led the team of scientists who discovered the reef, said they were surprised and excited by what they found.
“Not only 3D mapping the reef in detail, but also visually seeing this discovery with SuBastian is incredible,” said Dr. Beaman.
According to the institute, the base of the blade-shaped reef is 1.5 km wide, then rises 500 m to its lowest depth of just 40 m below the sea surface.
“Finding a new half-kilometer-high reef off the Cape York coastal area of the renowned Great Barrier Reef shows how mysterious the world is beyond our shoreline,” said Dr. Jyotika Virmani, executive director of the institute.
This newly discovered separate reef joins the other seven tall separate reefs in the area, mapped since the late 1800s, including the reef on Raine Island, the world’s most important green sea turtle nesting area.
The Great Barrier Reef runs 2,300 km along the northeast coast of Australia and covers an area half the size of Texas.
It was declared a World Heritage Site in 1981 by Unesco as the most extensive and spectacular coral reef ecosystem on the planet.
However, in recent years, it has lost more than half of its coral in the last three decades due to bleaching, triggered by record temperatures.
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