Scientists discover large cold-water soft coral garden in Newfoundland

A project team from Newfoundland’s Marine Institute has uncovered a nearly 10,000-square-metre cold-water soft coral garden, hidden just underneath the surface of the province’s Funk Island Deep.

The density and depth of the coral garden make it a remarkable find, according to researchers, who are now planning a return to the area to discover more about the species inside the garden.

“The really unique and wonderful thing about this discovery is that we’ve not seen them make this complex habitat before,” said Emmeline Broad, a Ph.D. candidate at Memorial University who was part of the team that discovered the habitat.

Broad, alongside members of the Marine Institute’s Marine Conservation Areas project, launched an underwater camera in the area in June, after previously discovering hints on regular sonar scans that the region could be interesting.

“They’ve never really been described in the densities that we’ve captured here,” she said.

Martin Dahl, a fisheries technologist with the Marine Conservation Areas project, helped flag the area on a sonar scan in 2023.

“It was a lot more life than we expected,” he said. “Although we hoped for something interesting, but you never know what you’ll get.”

The group made the find onboard the MV Polar Prince. (Emmeline Broad)

A custom camera, which the group is calling a BathyCam, was used to probe the area.

Home to sponges, basket stars and other soft corals, the soft coral habitat can begin to be seen as close as 60 metres from the surface.

The garden is in the Funk Island Deep region of the Atlantic Ocean, off Newfoundland’s northeast coast. The area is closed to fishing activity in an effort to support crab and cod regrowth.

The density of the coral garden suggests the habitat is a big boost to biodiversity off northeastern Newfoundland, Broad said. The team is now planning a return trip, where they hope to use environmental DNA sampling to understand which types of creatures make their home in the coral garden.

“This is collecting a water sample, and then using a series of techniques to preserve that sample and then to analyze it,” said Jonathan Fisher, who leads the Marine Conservation Areas project at Marine Institute. “Identify the specific DNA strands that are in there and compare that to a database.”

The group made the find onboard the MV Polar Prince, a former Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker which is now partially owned by the Miawpukek First Nation in Newfoundland.

The boat is used for research and training missions, and over the summer, a group of students from the First Nation’s cadet program were on board during the BathyCam deployment.

“For this to all come together in one spot, and to find this spectacular location and spectacular images that were collected in Funk Island Deep, just couldn’t be better.”