A breathtaking new discovery is giving ocean lovers around the world reason to celebrate. A mother-daughter duo of citizen scientists has found and mapped the world’s largest coral colony on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, a magnificent structure stretching 364 feet long with a footprint of roughly 42,765 square feet, roughly the size of a football field. Jan Pope and Sophie Kalkowski-Pope made the stunning find while conducting a reef census from their family vessel as part of their work with the conservation group Citizens of the Reef. “I knew right from the minute we dropped in that it was something special,” Kalkowski-Pope said. “It looked like a meadow of coral. It just went on and on.”
The colony dwarfs previously recorded examples of the same species, which typically measure between 100 and 115 feet, making this discovery more than three times larger than anything seen before. Researchers from the Centre for Robotics at Queensland University of Technology partnered with Citizens of the Reef to map the colony using in-water measurements, high-resolution surface imaging, and three-dimensional modeling, creating a detailed baseline that scientists can return to year after year to track how the coral changes over time. The coral’s exact location is being kept secret to protect it. Scientists are now studying the unique local conditions, strong tidal currents and relatively low cyclonic wave exposure to understand how such a massive structure managed to grow and endure, with hopes that the findings will help identify and protect other potential reef strongholds around the world.
Source: https://www.newsweek.com/world-largest-coral-colony-australia-great-barrier-reef-11580649