Measuring giant corals
Iñigo San Felix/National Geographic Society
A gigantic underwater structure off the coast of the tropical Solomon Islands in the southwestern Pacific Ocean has been confirmed to be the world’s largest known coral.
A team of scientists and filmmakers visited a remote location in mid-October national geographic The object was so large that I thought it must be the remains of a shipwreck.
But when underwater cinematographer Manu Saint-Félix jumped into the water for a closer look, he was surprised by what he saw.
“I completely remember jumping up and looking down, but I was surprised,” he told reporters during a briefing. Instead of a shipwreck, San Felix encountered the largest coral ever discovered. “It’s huge,” he said. “It’s almost the same size as a cathedral.”
A coral species located a few hundred meters off the east coast of Marauralo Island was identified as this species. Pavona Kraus. At 34 meters wide and 32 meters long, it is larger than a blue whale and is thought to be 300 years old.
Enric Sala says the discovery was a “happy accident”. national geographic‘s Pristine Seas project aims to encourage governments to protect marine ecosystems through exploration and research. This is by far the largest single coral colony ever discovered, easily beating the previous record-holder, a giant coral colony. porphyry A colony with a diameter of 22.4 meters and a height of 8 meters discovered in American Samoa in 2019.
Over the past two years, record sea temperatures have led to a series of coral bleaching events around the world. But Sala says the giant reef is showing signs of bleaching, while other reefs around the Solomon Islands are showing signs of bleaching. P. Cravath The coral looks healthy. It is an important habitat for marine life, providing shelter and food for fish, shrimp, insects and crabs, he says. “It’s like a big patch of old-growth forest.”
However, corals are not immune from ecological threats, including local pollution, overfishing, and global climate change. Sala says she would like to see more marine protected areas (MPAs) created to protect marine life from localized pollution, alongside global efforts to combat climate change. “Protecting coral reefs won’t lower water temperatures, and it won’t stop oceans from warming,” he says. “We need to fix it, and we need to reduce carbon emissions. But MPAs can help buy us time by making reefs more resilient.”
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