Massive coral discovered off Georgia coast

It’s not going to be much use for snorkelers – but an exciting discovery by researchers has unveiled the largest known deep-sea coral in the world, and much of it lies along Georgia’s coast.  A team of scientists and researchers from the federal National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration along with several participating universities discovered the formation while mapping the Blake Plateau, a massive underwater plain off the East Coast.  At 310 miles long and 68 miles wide, the coral spans from near Charleston, SC, all the way down to Miami, including all of Georgia’s coastline – about 90 miles offshore.  The discovery is exciting for scientists, though out of reach for civilian divers – the corals exist from between several hundred feet  below the surface to as deep as 3,000 feet.  The dense coral mounds are teeming with life, a revelation because the Blake Plateau was formerly thought to be mostly barren.  And because coral is such an important ecosystem, the Georgia coast – or in this case 90 miles off it – has been discovered to be one of the most important areas of the Atlantic Ocean.