July 13, 2016 — SEAFOOD NEWS — A report to Congress submitted last month describes the 2014 and 2015 research activities on the nation’s deep-sea coral areas. The report also briefly describes progress during this period in MSA-related management actions that contribute to protecting deep-sea coral areas.

Feldwork in two regions was done during 2014-15. A survey of 31 submarine canyons between Maine and Virginia and the discovery of coral gardens just 25 miles off the coast of Maine was done by the Northeast Fieldwork Initiative.

In Alaska, images of the seafloor at more than 200 stations throughout the 1,200-mile Aleutian Islands chain were taken, confirming widespread corals and commercially important fish using the coral areas.

These initiatives tell researchers about many deep-sea coral communities that no humans had seen before. The involved scientists shared their findings and enabled the respective  management councils to act on the newest data.

NOAA’s Deep Sea Coral Research Program is a central partner for new research in the Pacific Islands region that began in 2015 and will continue until 2017. This research is also discovering deep-sea coral communities, and likely new species, in places never before surveyed.

Deep-sea corals can live for hundreds or thousands of years, creating remarkably complex communities in the depths of the oceans. Their habitat in the deep sea ranges from 150-foot depth to more than 10,000 feet.

Deep-sea coral habitats have been discovered in all U.S. regions on continental shelves and slopes, canyons, and seamounts. Their full geographic extent is still unknown, because most areas have yet to be adequately surveyed.

A few deep-sea coral species form reefs that, over millennia, can grow more than 100 meters (300 feet) tall. Many other coral species are shaped like bushes or trees and can form assemblages similar to groves or forests on the seafloor.

Nationwide, these complex structures provide habitat for many fish and invertebrate species, including certain commercially important ones such as grouper, snapper, sea bass, rockfish, shrimp, and crab.

This story originally appeared on Seafoodnews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.