Deep-sea reefs discovered off the coast of Tel Aviv

When a team of Israeli marine researchers took off on a two and a half week voyage aboard the Exploration Vessel Nautilus, the robot-equipped research ship of Titanic discoverer Robert Ballard, they knew they were in for surprises, but they didn’t realize how big.

Thirty to 40 kilometers off the coast of Tel Aviv, in an area once thought to be relatively barren of sea life, the explorers discovered a huge reef of deep-sea coral stretching for several kilometers, some 700 meters under the sea.

“It’s like finding a flourishing oasis in the middle of the desert,” said Dr. Yizhaq Makovsky, who directed the University of Haifa control center for the project. “We did not expect, know, or even imagine that we would come across these reefs and certainly not such large ones.”

Photo By  mattk1979
To read the whole article, click here
Via http://www.israel21c.org/