Cold-water soft coral garden discovered in Newfoundland [Video]

A project team from Newfoundland’s Marine Institute has uncovered a nearly 10,000-square-metre cold-water soft coral garden, hidden just underneath the surface of the province’s Funk Island Deep.

The density and depth of the coral garden make it a remarkable find, according to researchers, who are now planning a return to the area to discover more about the species inside the garden.

“The really unique and wonderful thing about this discovery is that we’ve not seen them make this complex habitat before,” said Emmeline Broad, a Ph.D. candidate at Memorial University who was part of the team that discovered the habitat.

Broad, alongside members of the Marine Institute’s Marine Conservation Areas project, launched an underwater camera in the area in June, after previously discovering hints on regular sonar scans that the region could be interesting.

“They’ve never really been described in the densities that we’ve captured here,” she said.

Martin Dahl, …