2000 Year Old Deep-sea Black Corals in Gulf of Mexico

A recent survey by USGS using a manned submarine pulled up a sample of Deep-sea Black Coral in the Gulf of Mexico that was later determined to be 2000 years old. Deep-sea Black Corals live in waters over 900 feet deep and have an extremely slow growth rate. A human finger nail grows 200 times faster than a Deep-sea Black Coral. More info below. Big hat-tip to Corailline for sharing this with us.


These 2- to 3-m-tall orange-colored, black coral trees (Leiopathes cf. glabberima) growing near Viosca Knoll in the Gulf of Mexico are among the oldest living organisms on Earth.

“We used a manned submersible, the Johnson-Sea-Link, to go to the sea floor and specifically collect certain samples using the sub's manipulator arms,” said Prouty. “Deep-sea black corals are a perfect example of ecosystems linked between the surface and the deep ocean. They can potentially record this link in their skeleton for hundreds to thousands of years.”

The skeletons that these animals secrete continuously over hundreds to thousands of years offer an unprecedented window into past environmental conditions. Age dating used in combination with emerging technologies, such as sampling skeletal material with a laser to determine its chemical composition, enables scientists to reconstruct environmental conditions in time slices smaller than a decade over the last 1,000 to 2,000 years.

Black corals grow in tree- or bush-like forms. Scientists confirmed that black corals are the slowest growing deep-sea corals. They grow 8 to 22 micrometers per year as compared to the shallow-water reef-building coral, typically found in tropical areas like Hawai‘i, which grows about 1 mm per year, or 65 times as fast as black coral. Human fingernails grow about 3 mm per year, or 200 times faster than black coral.

Full article here:
USGS Release: 2,000 Year-old Deep-sea Black Corals call Gulf of Mexico Home (3/30/2011 3:19:44 PM)

 

That is sooo awesome.....

 

Very cool

 

Wow, that is crazy.

...pretty interesting article.

 

very cooooool, now if only Tangs grew that slow that would rock!

 

Very cool article. Not sure how they get that fingernails grow 3mm per year, because an average human fingernail grows about 3mm per month, not year.

 

Neat, but I guess that means it will take a while for frags to grow out ;D