Scientists Discover Coral Reef Taller Than the Empire State Building (bbc.com) 30
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: An enormous coral reef has been found at the northern tip of Australia's Great Barrier Reef, the first such discovery in 120 years, scientists say. At 500m (1,640ft) high, the reef is taller than New York's Empire State Building and the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Scientists on a 12-month mission found the structure, detached from the Great Barrier Reef off Cape York, last week. They were conducting 3D mapping of the sea floor in the area. A team aboard a research vessel owned by the Schmidt Ocean Institute (SOI), a non-profit group based in California, used an underwater robot to explore the reef.
The reef is the first of its kind to be found in the region since the late 1800s, scientists said. There are known to be seven other tall reefs in the region, including the one at Raine Island -- the world's most important green sea turtle nesting area. While the reef is bedded to the ocean floor off North Queensland, it is detached, meaning it is not part of the main body of the Great Barrier Reef. Described as "blade-like," the reef is 1.5km wide (one mile), then rises 500m to its shallowest depth of only 40m below the sea surface. Researchers are expected to continue surveying the northern Great Barrier Reef until 17 November.
The reef is the first of its kind to be found in the region since the late 1800s, scientists said. There are known to be seven other tall reefs in the region, including the one at Raine Island -- the world's most important green sea turtle nesting area. While the reef is bedded to the ocean floor off North Queensland, it is detached, meaning it is not part of the main body of the Great Barrier Reef. Described as "blade-like," the reef is 1.5km wide (one mile), then rises 500m to its shallowest depth of only 40m below the sea surface. Researchers are expected to continue surveying the northern Great Barrier Reef until 17 November.
at least we got to study it... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:1, Interesting)
Lick my balls
And that, ladies and gentlemen is why we can't have a nice environment that supports human life anymore. So much winning. Are you tired of winning yet?
Re: (Score:2)
... before ocean acidification due to CO2 emissions melts it away.
. . . the boatloads of tourists flocking to see, walk around on, and crush this Empire State Reef will destroy it before any CO2 emissions get a chance to take a whack at it.
Re: at least we got to study it... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
At least we got to study it before ocean acidification due to CO2 emissions melts it away.
I wish we could say the same about the coral reef.
sad (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Empire State Building (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I thought it was the Taliban that fixed the WTC.
Re: (Score:1)
Not really on topic, but I visited the ESB in 1997 and the building was a complete dump (think trash, cigarette smell, general dilapidation, etc.)
Well, that kinda sorta fits . . . the whole country is a bit of a dump right now.
Re: Empire State Building (Score:1)
One man's garbage is another man's treasure... I thought America was? winning with all the freedoms. You know, down with socialist Europeans and communist Asians -- all that jazz.
Re: (Score:2)
the whole country is a bit of a dump right now.
But the economy is good!
Re: (Score:2)
Third Voyage of the Beagle. (Score:3)
I read the diary of third voyage of the beagle off the coast of Australia and the amount of scientific measurements the crew took on the journey was insane. They basically took continuous depth soundings every few minutes on their journey, every half an hour they would scoop up some of the sea floor to check what type of material it was.
The navigators had to continuously check the accuracy of the clocks, and calculate their exact coordinates throughout the day. Meanwhile the cartographers would map out the coastline. They also had crew measuring their water speed and the wind speed to calculate any drift in the periods where they hadn't taken accurate time measurements.
Whenever any prominent landmarks came up they would go ashore and conduct geological surveys a few miles inland and also try and take bearings on all the features, take sketches of all the new fauna and flora and collect geological samples before returning to the ship.
This was all done by hand in 1837 and must have been a phenomenal amount of work. But it did allow them to colonise the appropriate areas without wasting resources. Anyways where this comes back to the story, all the depth and bottom measurements they took on their journey are relevant even today to our understanding of what the geology of the sea floor is like in these areas.
What is even more interesting is that during this voyage they also discovered a type of tobacco (Nicotiana benthamiana) that is very susceptible to almost all virus and is used these days in medical research for farming antibodies. One research lab in Canada is even moving through stage 1 trials to use this as a method of producing flu vaciines including a COVID-19 vaccine. I think convoluted stories like these are proof that we stand on the shoulders of giants.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Profit before grace. (Score:2)
It just goes to show you (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Have you ever needed an antibiotic?
How did they miss it? (Score:2)
If something as tall as the Empire State Building can escape notice, in an environment that scientists like to study, what else is down there in the oceans? Better hurry up with the exploration, because pretty soon the interesting stuff will die from pollution, before we know it was there. Oh look, a new species of seahorse. Petty it's dead, though.