Deep Sea Coral
Deep sea coral taken by the vessel Tiburon, on a remote area west of the Dry Tortugas Islands. © NOAA.
DB: This is Earth and Sky. You might envision coral in warm tropical waters . . .
JB: But there’s also coral at the bottoms of oceans all over the world. It’s often more than a couple of kilometers – over a mile – below the surface. It was only five years ago that new kinds of deep-diving submersibles started to reveal spectacular towers of coral in the deep ocean. Today, there’s a backlog of deep sea coral in the Smithsonian Museum awaiting description. And researchers are racing to discover new species of coral before they’re gone . . .
DB: Deep-sea coral reefs grow slowly . . . about an inch, or a couple of centimeters, per year. The corals are being destroyed by a kind of deep-sea fishing called “trawling,” where ships drag huge nets along the sea floor. We talked about deep sea corals with Mike Hirshfield, Chief Scientist at Oceana, a non-profit organization based in Washington D.C.,
Mike Hirshfield: I’ve been a marine scientist my whole life, and I hadn’t heard of them until a few years ago, either . . . this is one of the tragedies of the deep sea, it’s one of the tragedies of telling the story of the ocean is that so much of it really is out of sight and out of mind.
JB: For today, that’s our show. Special thanks to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. We’re Block and Byrd for Earth and Sky.
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Author’s Notes:
Corals are living animals that can congregate in spectacular colonies towering up to ten feet tall. Yet these minute animals are extremely slow growing-less than one inch a year-and are ultra-sensitive to disturbance.
Mike Hirshfield, who studies deep-sea corals, said that although scientists don’t know for sure, they suspect that there are many species of fish that depend on the complex coral habitat for breeding and nursery grounds. If you’re a baby fish, you would like to have a place to hide and that’s what these corals provide.
Corals are also sources of biodiversity. Hirshfield said these are, “new species that, to my mind have a reason to exist for their own sake . . . we are crazy to be destroying elements of life on Earth where we don’t understand them and where we know that it’s going to take hundreds and maybe thousands of years, if ever, for them to recover.”
The following individual was interviewed for today’s show. Our thanks to:
Mike Hirshfield
Chief Scientist
Oceana
Additional Teacher Resources
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Ocean Explorer; Explorations: Deep Sea Corals
This site provides an introduction to deep sea corals. It includes a general description, the types and distribution, the immediate and long term threats to the coral, and what efforts are being made to conserve it. The site also provides a variety of links to more information.
The National Geographic Society; National Geographic News: Trawlers Destroying Deep-Sea Reefs, Scientists Say
This article provides an informative look at the dangers and ecological impact that the commercial fishing industries technique of trawling is having on deep sea coral and its relatively unknown ecosystem.
Oceana: Protecting the Worlds Oceans; Deep Sea Corals: Deep Sea Corals: Out of Sight, But No Longer Out of Mind
Deep sea corals are essential for the living ocean. These marine animals form the foundation of stunningly beautiful seafloor communities and are important habitats for fish to forage, find protection and lay their eggs. Some coral gardens contain more than one hundred species of corals and sponges and provide habitat for countless other animals. This article takes a look at how we benefit from deep sea coral and the immediate threats to its existence.
