"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwhat you're looking at is the first reef to be discovered in australia's great barrier reef in over 120 years chances are you've heard the reef is not in good shape scientists have been telling us for years about the absolutely brutal effect that climate change has had on the reef over the last couple years in fact a study just out last month found the reef has lost nearly half its corals since the 1990s that's why it's so refreshing to finally get some good news last month scientists discovered a 500 meter tall reef in the gbr that is massive if you can't picture that scale that's taller than the empire state building or the patronus towers in malaysia it's the first reef discovery in 120 years in the great barrier reef so we are very excited about it that's dr carly weiner from the schmidt ocean institute i had a chance to talk with her about this amazing find scientists discovered it on board schmidt's research vessel the falcore which is a former german fishery ship retrofitted for deep sea research it's equipped with tons of advanced research equipment like remotely operated vehicles drones high resolution mapping system we use echo sanders to visualize the seafloor in high resolution that allows us to then look for really interesting things like canyons we've discovered sea mounts and we can go then dive with an underwater robotic vehicle on these areas right now the falcore is on a year-long mission mapping the oceans around australia once scientists on board found this giant reef the next step was going in for a closer look we knew that we had found something but we didn't know what it was going to look like and so we were all very excited about this dive and anticipating it we made an announcement on social to our faithful followers at schmidt ocean that liked to participate in our dives and so we had people all over the world watching as we were making this discovery viewers got to watch as scientists explore the reef with their remotely operated vehicle sebastian now this is a custom-built rov that can go as deep as 4500 meters it's modular so scientists can swap out different tools and sensors depending on the mission and it's of course equipped with high def video cameras this underwater robot is like your eyes and your hands while you're out in the lab it can see things that we wouldn't be able to see otherwise and then we can also take samples so it allows us to be able to precisely take small samples which not only allows us to preserve the specimens and understand new species and characterize the biodiversity so what actually is living in these ocean environments but also so that we're not trawling or taking large pieces of our ocean floor to understand so it's actually helping to refine the science without doing impact or damage the base of this reef is about 1.5 kilometers wide and its tallest point it's just about 40 meters below the surface but winer says the really unique exciting stuff it stems from this reef's height it's so tall that you get to see how the different systems change from these drowned reefs that have you know corals and deep corals growing on them up to the shallower 30 40 meter depths that had schools of fish and sharks and incredible healthy coral if you're like me you might be wondering how something this massive can go undiscovered for so long well dr weiner reminded me that when it comes to ocean exploration we've really only just scratched the surface about five percent of our deep sea or ocean is really understood and characterized and we have about 20 percent mapped now of our sea floor so when you think about that we know more about some planets and moons than we do about our own uh our own oceans it's mind-blowing this only adds to a year of amazing discoveries on board the falcore in april scientists discovered the longest recorded sea creature is 45 meters safonophor not to mention a walking scorpion fish that we believe is new as well as the first video of a ram's horn squid which is commonly known from its skeleton that washes up ashore and beaches but it's never been seen alive or captured on video before now the really exciting thing is what scientists can do with this discovery one of the areas schmidt focuses on is the study of older ancient coral now this is coral that's been around for thousands of years even longer these drowned reefs that have all this information from the past buried with them and so we can extract things like ocean temperature and ocean currents and we use that information to model for the future so we can better understand what the impacts of a warming climate are on our oceans schmidt makes all this data it collects publicly available that means the people who write and enact ocean policy can use it to create boundaries for protected areas and for regulations we can't understand our ocean completely and be able to protect it if we don't know what's in it and what we're protecting and so being able to make these discoveries to characterize these environments and really know how they're interconnected that to me is most special place to be in the world schmidt has moved on from exploring that mega tall reef but scientists from all over the world are expected to take interest in this for years now i also asked dr weiner if the reef had a name she said that's probably coming in the near future you know they'll be working on that of course the australian government gets a say in that sort of thing now if you liked what you saw here i highly recommend checking out schmidt ocean's website we put a link down below there is a ton of awesome video and images that you can just get lost in so what do you guys think does a discovery like this give you hope for our ocean's futures let us know in the comments belowwhat you're looking at is the first reef to be discovered in australia's great barrier reef in over 120 years chances are you've heard the reef is not in good shape scientists have been telling us for years about the absolutely brutal effect that climate change has had on the reef over the last couple years in fact a study just out last month found the reef has lost nearly half its corals since the 1990s that's why it's so refreshing to finally get some good news last month scientists discovered a 500 meter tall reef in the gbr that is massive if you can't picture that scale that's taller than the empire state building or the patronus towers in malaysia it's the first reef discovery in 120 years in the great barrier reef so we are very excited about it that's dr carly weiner from the schmidt ocean institute i had a chance to talk with her about this amazing find scientists discovered it on board schmidt's research vessel the falcore which is a former german fishery ship retrofitted for deep sea research it's equipped with tons of advanced research equipment like remotely operated vehicles drones high resolution mapping system we use echo sanders to visualize the seafloor in high resolution that allows us to then look for really interesting things like canyons we've discovered sea mounts and we can go then dive with an underwater robotic vehicle on these areas right now the falcore is on a year-long mission mapping the oceans around australia once scientists on board found this giant reef the next step was going in for a closer look we knew that we had found something but we didn't know what it was going to look like and so we were all very excited about this dive and anticipating it we made an announcement on social to our faithful followers at schmidt ocean that liked to participate in our dives and so we had people all over the world watching as we were making this discovery viewers got to watch as scientists explore the reef with their remotely operated vehicle sebastian now this is a custom-built rov that can go as deep as 4500 meters it's modular so scientists can swap out different tools and sensors depending on the mission and it's of course equipped with high def video cameras this underwater robot is like your eyes and your hands while you're out in the lab it can see things that we wouldn't be able to see otherwise and then we can also take samples so it allows us to be able to precisely take small samples which not only allows us to preserve the specimens and understand new species and characterize the biodiversity so what actually is living in these ocean environments but also so that we're not trawling or taking large pieces of our ocean floor to understand so it's actually helping to refine the science without doing impact or damage the base of this reef is about 1.5 kilometers wide and its tallest point it's just about 40 meters below the surface but winer says the really unique exciting stuff it stems from this reef's height it's so tall that you get to see how the different systems change from these drowned reefs that have you know corals and deep corals growing on them up to the shallower 30 40 meter depths that had schools of fish and sharks and incredible healthy coral if you're like me you might be wondering how something this massive can go undiscovered for so long well dr weiner reminded me that when it comes to ocean exploration we've really only just scratched the surface about five percent of our deep sea or ocean is really understood and characterized and we have about 20 percent mapped now of our sea floor so when you think about that we know more about some planets and moons than we do about our own uh our own oceans it's mind-blowing this only adds to a year of amazing discoveries on board the falcore in april scientists discovered the longest recorded sea creature is 45 meters safonophor not to mention a walking scorpion fish that we believe is new as well as the first video of a ram's horn squid which is commonly known from its skeleton that washes up ashore and beaches but it's never been seen alive or captured on video before now the really exciting thing is what scientists can do with this discovery one of the areas schmidt focuses on is the study of older ancient coral now this is coral that's been around for thousands of years even longer these drowned reefs that have all this information from the past buried with them and so we can extract things like ocean temperature and ocean currents and we use that information to model for the future so we can better understand what the impacts of a warming climate are on our oceans schmidt makes all this data it collects publicly available that means the people who write and enact ocean policy can use it to create boundaries for protected areas and for regulations we can't understand our ocean completely and be able to protect it if we don't know what's in it and what we're protecting and so being able to make these discoveries to characterize these environments and really know how they're interconnected that to me is most special place to be in the world schmidt has moved on from exploring that mega tall reef but scientists from all over the world are expected to take interest in this for years now i also asked dr weiner if the reef had a name she said that's probably coming in the near future you know they'll be working on that of course the australian government gets a say in that sort of thing now if you liked what you saw here i highly recommend checking out schmidt ocean's website we put a link down below there is a ton of awesome video and images that you can just get lost in so what do you guys think does a discovery like this give you hope for our ocean's futures let us know in the comments below\n"