Science!

Deep in the hostile waters off Canada’s west coast, in a narrow channel surrounded by fjords, lies a coral reef that scientists believe “shouldn’t exist”. The reef is the northernmost ever discovered in the Pacific Ocean and offers researchers a new glimpse into the resilience – and unpredictability – of the deep-sea ecosystems.

For generations, members of the Kitasoo Xai’xaisand Heiltsuk First Nations, two communities off the Central Coast region of British Columbia, had noticed large groups of rockfish congregating in a fjord system.

In 2021, researchers and the First Nations, in collaboration with the Canadian government, deployed a remote-controlled submersible to probe the depths of the Finlayson Channel, about 300 miles north-west of Vancouver.


On the last of nearly 20 dives, the team made a startling discovery – one that has only recently been made public.

“When we started to see the living corals, everyone was in doubt,” says Cherisse Du Preez, head of the deep-sea ecology program at Fisheries and Oceans Canada. “Then, when we saw the expansive fields of coral in front of us, everybody just let loose. There were a lot of pure human emotions.”

Despite existing in absolute darkness, the lights of the submersible captured the rich pinks, yellows and purples of the corals and sponges.

The following year, the team mapped Lophelia Reef, or q̓áuc̓íwísuxv, as it has been named by the Kitasoo Xai’xais and Heiltsuk First Nations. It is the country’s only known living coral reef.

The discovery marks the latest in a string of instances in which Indigenous knowledge has directed researchers to areas of scientific or historic importance. More than a decade ago, Inuk oral historian Louie Kamookak compared Inuit stories with explorers’ logbooks and journals to help locate Sir John Franklin’s lost ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror. In 2014, divers located the wreck of the Erebus in a spot Kamookak suggested they search, and using his directions found the Terror two years later.……

https://www.theguardian.com/environ...sts-say-shouldnt-exist?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other