December 9, 2019 — Some of the oldest living things on the planet are centuries-old corals growing in perpetual darkness along Mid Atlantic states like Virginia and the Carolinas, according to NOAA’s Office of Exploration and Research.
Photos of the most bizarre of the corals were shared this week on Facebook, revealing them to be bony looking, brightly colored and filled with legions of cowering shrimp.
“Some individual corals live for several hundred years and reefs can be several thousands of years old,” NOAA officials wrote.
A video shows the coral’s growth is dense enough in some spots to form “a wall of coral” that fish can’t penetrate.
“Look at the size of that. I am in awe now,” one NOAA researcher says in the video. “These organisms have been growing down here in the deep sea for longer than our country probably has been a country… It is astounding.”