Photos of the coral reef discovered in the Amazon

Environment · Lorenzo Brenna · 2017-02-13

Last year a group of American and Brazilian oceanographers discovered a coral reef where one was thought impossible: in the Amazon River.

Coral reefs all over the world are dying, killed slowly by the relentless acidification of the oceans and rising global temperatures, and more rapidly by overfishing, which encourages the growth of algae that compete with corals, by agricultural waste discharges and by deforestation. Yet last year a group of Brazilian scientists discovered a coral reef where one was thought impossible: in the Amazon River.

Pesce nella barriera corallina amazzonica — During the research, scientists found many species of fish as well as crustaceans, starfish and sponges. One of the sponges weighed as much as a baby elephant (Photo: Greenpeace)

An incredible underwater world

The coral reef was "discovered" at the mouth of the river, where it flows into the Atlantic, at a depth of between fifty and one hundred metres. The reef is said to be of imposing dimensions, extending for almost ten thousand square kilometres. Unlike similar ecosystems, this reef is characterised by turbid, muddy waters and strong currents — which is precisely why it was officially discovered so late, and why little is still known about the creatures that inhabit it.

Ricci barriera corallina — "We found a reef where the textbooks say there shouldn't be one," Fabiano Thompson of the Universidade Federal di Rio de Janeiro, co-author of the study published in Science, told National Geographic (Photo: Greenpeace)

The mud people

According to the first research expeditions, however, it is not home to particularly high biodiversity — at least not on a par with tropical coral reefs. Even so, the forms of life already observed are numerous, including over 70 species of fish, crustaceans, several species of sponge — one of them gigantic — and starfish. "We found the most extraordinary animals I have ever encountered on this type of expedition," said oceanographer Patricia Yager of the University of Georgia. "There were sea fans, red and yellow sponges such as Aplysina insularis, and tiny fish the colour of sunset, as well as coral-like algae called rhodoliths."

The first photos released by Greenpeace

The first photographs of the reef have just been published, taken from a Greenpeace submarine that has also launched a campaign to protect the newly discovered reef.

Barriera corallina che si affaccia sul Pacifico — The coral reef extends for more than 9,300 square kilometres across the seabed to the edge of the South American continental shelf, from the southern tip of French Guiana to the Brazilian state of Maranhão (Photo: Greenpeace)

Oil threatens the reef

There are indeed numerous threats to this remarkable ecosystem, endangered above all by oil exploration in the region. "Large-scale industrial activities represent an enormous environmental challenge, and companies should commit to a full socio-ecological assessment of the system before extending their impact," reads the study published last year in the journal Science.