Spotting soft coral garden off Newfoundland 'once in a lifetime' opportunity, researcher says

Off the coast of Newfoundland this past summer, Marine Institute researchers spotted a rare underwater site that came in a kaleidoscope of colours like pink, blues, purples and orange.

While sailing past the Funk Island Deep marine refuge in June a group aboard the MV Polar Prince came across a soft coral garden, which is a collection of fleshy corals densely packed on the seabed.

"I think this might be a once in a lifetime, you know, opportunity for someone like me to come across a habitat like this. And it was a real privilege to share it with everybody on board," said Emmeline Broad, a PhD candidate at the Marine Institute's School of Ocean Technology in St. John's. 

To be called a coral garden, Broad said there needs to be two or more different types of soft coral species present.

In this case, she said they aren't sure exactly what types of are there but they have spotted other marine species like crabs and anthropods, as well as fish around the coral.

Although soft coral gardens are common across the North Atlantic, they are unusual in such density like what was found around the Funk Island Deep, said Broad.

"Honestly, I've never seen such densities as soft corals in the North Atlantic. And I've been working with seabed imagery for a number of years now," she said.

She's seen gardens in Greenland, for example, but the one she saw off Funk Island is far larger. She said the team estimates the area of the soft coral garden is around 10,000 square metres of the sea floor.

"We actually can't see the seabed because they are so dense."

Broad said she used a device she helped develop in-house that they call BathyCam, which uses a powerful camera that can capture views at 6,000 metres in depth. Developed by local company SubC Imaging, the camera can view the soft coral garden in a way never before seen.

She was on board the Polar Prince, which was sailing as part of a marine conservation areas project, made its way up to Funk Island.

She said the Funk Island area has a lot of currents, which means the cameras and small RV wouldn't be able to get below the water surface. Broad said the BathyCam is larger so they decided to try it, which was how she was able to spot the soft coral garden.

"We put it down again and lo behold, we see this density that is just completely unique and I've never seen before."

Robyn Whelan, a fisheries technologist with the Marine Institute's Centre for Fisheries Ecosystems Research, was on board when the image of the soft coral garden came into view.