The world’s largest coral reef, stretching the length of a football field, has been discovered by giddy scientists.
A census has located the biggest documented and mapped coral colony on the planet.
Located on the Great Barrier Reef the discovery was made by mother and daughter diving duo Jan Pope and Sophie Kalkowski-Pope.
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The Marine Operations Coordinator at Citizens of the Reef, was accompanied by her mum during a surveying session.
The ground-breaking discovery was made Thursday (26 Feb) in Australia, as reported by Need To Know.
The coral colony has an estimated size of 3,973 square metres, roughly the size of an American football field.
The reef stretches around 111 metres, which dwarfs the previous large colonies on record that range from 30 to 35 metres.
Sophie Kalkowski-Pope said: “I knew right from the minute we dropped in that it was something special.
“Discoveries like this are significant because the reef still holds so many unknowns, and we don’t know what we stand to lose.”
Jan Pope added: “When I got in the water, I’d never seen coral growing like this before.
“It looked like a meadow of coral. It just went on and on.”
The discovery was made during the Great Reef Census, run by Citizens of the Reef.
Manual underwater measurements combined with high-res images generated a 3D model of the colony.
The spatial modelling was completed by the Centre for Robotics at Queensland University of Technology.
Serena Mou, Research Engineer at QUT, said: “The benefit of this kind of spatial data is that we can take measurements at very high resolution.
“It also means we can return in future months and years and make direct, one-to-one comparisons to understand how the coral changes over time.”
Despite the amazing discovery, experts have warned that it is not evidence that the reefs are recovering or that climate pressures are lowering.
The exact location of the colony is being withheld to protect it whilst research is conducted on the area.
Andy Ridley, CEO of Citizens of the Reef, said: “The Great Reef Census was developed to complement existing monitoring programs by gathering large-scale data.
“This is made possible by people already out on the water, like Sophie and Jan, and thousands of citizen scientists around the world.”
