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November 1, 2020: Lophelia Coral

Dense fields of Lophelia pertusa, a common reef-building coral, found on the Blake Plateau knolls off the Atlantic coast of Florida during the Windows to the Deep 2019 expedition. The white coloring is healthy – deep-sea corals don’t rely on symbiotic algae, so they can’t bleach. Operations during this expedition took NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer both inside and outside the Stetson-Miami Terrace Deepwater Coral Habitat Area of Particular Concern, and the team discovered mounds of reef-building corals no one had dreamed of.

Image courtesy of the NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research, Windows to the Deep 2019. Download larger version (jpg, 1.8 MB).

Dense fields of Lophelia pertusa, a common reef-building coral, found on the Blake Plateau knolls off the Atlantic coast of Florida during the Windows to the Deep 2019 expedition. The white coloring is healthy — deep-sea corals don’t rely on symbiotic algae, so they can’t bleach. Operations during this expedition took NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer both inside and outside the Stetson-Miami Terrace Deepwater Coral Habitat Area of Particular Concern, and the team discovered mounds of reef-building corals no one had dreamed of.

From: Unforeseen Abundance of Deep-Sea Coral Habitat.