Five hundred meters deep, in the heart of the Golfo di Napoli, a thousand-year-old secret lay dormant. It was there that, during the scientific expedition "Demetra," researchers from the National Research Council discovered a vast coral reef never before observed in the Dohrn Canyon, a marine area a few kilometers from the Neapolitan coast. The mission, coordinated by the Institute of Marine Sciences of the CNR (CNR-Ismar) with the collaboration of the Anton Dohrn Zoological Station, the Polytechnic University of Marche, and the Federico II University of Naples. Napoli, used a remotely operated underwater vehicle to explore the depths of the canyon.
The images returned by the robot revealed a vertical wall of over eighty meters dotted with hard corals, the so-called "white corals" – Desmophyllum pertusum e Madrepora oculata – which form imposing structures, more than two meters wide.
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The reef is home to a surprising biodiversity: black and solitary corals, sponges and rare organisms such as the bivalve Acesta excavata and the deep-sea oyster Neopycnodonte zibrowiiAlongside living colonies, researchers also found fossil aggregations, authentic natural archives that tell the story of the canyon's geological and biological evolution over the centuries.
According to Frine Cardone of the Anton Dohrn Zoological Station, the area "represents a deep ecosystem of extraordinary scientific interest and naturalistic value." The Dohrn Canyon, already a pilot site for the European project Life Dream and of the program STRAIGHTEN dedicated to the restoration of marine ecosystems damaged by humans, it is now a candidate for inclusion in the Natura 2000 network as a new marine protected area.
Comments (1)
I read the article and found the discovery in the Gulf of Naples very interesting. However, I think it would be important to better understand how these corals affect the marine ecosystem and what actions can be taken to protect them.