Coral and fish found in unexpected areas of Coral Sea

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Amid the bleak forecasts about the state of the Great Barrier Reef there's been a heartening discovery nearby. Queensland researchers have discovered an abundance of Sealife in the deep waters of the coral sea.

Transcript

00:00 In the twilight middle zone of the remote coral sea, researchers have found an extraordinary

00:06 thriving community.

00:08 Coral cover's gone down dramatically in the shallows, but when we put the ROV down into

00:12 the deeper areas, we're picking up areas of 80, 90, close to 100% coral cover down as

00:17 deep as 100 metres.

00:18 The new study is looking into the effects of climate change and human impacts on the

00:22 reef.

00:23 James Cook University researchers explored 15 sites using remote operated vehicles.

00:29 We send the robot down to see what we can find and hopefully keep everything nice and

00:34 stable to conduct a steady survey.

00:37 They found 68 species of fish not previously known to live at that depth.

00:42 Researchers hope the discovery will fill some gaps in knowledge about the mysterious mesophotic

00:46 reef, the middle zone between shallow and deep reef layers.

00:51 Hopefully we can continue that through time and just see, you know, are they being impacted

00:55 by any disturbances or it is only the shallow areas and what sort of depth do we see refuge

01:01 from some of these disturbances?

01:03 Giving us a glimpse of the underwater world.

01:05 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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