Two coral reefs and seamounts discovered

At a water depth of 370 to 420 meters, the scientists on board the research vessel Falkor Too discovered two pristine deep-sea coral reefs off the Galapagos Islands with the help of the Schmidt Ocean Institute’s underwater robot ‘SuBastian’. The discovery increases our knowledge of deep reefs in the Galápagos Marine Protected Area, they report.

Reefs probably thousands of years old
The larger of the two reefs is 800 meters long, which is the size of eight football fields. The second, smaller reef is about 250 meters long. Both reefs contain a rich diversity of stony coral species, indicating that they have likely formed over thousands of years and support marine biodiversity.

The discovery follows the discovery of the first deep-sea coral reefs in the Galapagos Marine Reserve in April 2023 by scientists aboard the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s R/V Atlantis, diving with the Alvin submarine, the researchers write on the Schmidt Ocean website Institute.

Two unknown seamounts discovered
In addition to the reefs, the research team also discovered two previously unknown deep seamounts and mapped them in high resolution. The existence of this underwater mountain was already suspected based on satellite data and has now been officially confirmed.

One goal of the expedition was to create extremely high-resolution maps of these reefs using laser scanning: this method works with an accuracy of two millimeters, so that even animals living on the seabed can be captured.