Approximately one hundred miles off the United States’ southeastern coast, the Blake Plateau is a thriving deep-sea ecosystem hosting 80,000 Lophelia coral mounds — the world’s largest expanse of deep-sea coral habitat. While a well-known benefit of deep-sea corals is the habitat they provide for a diverse community of fishes and invertebrates, a lesser-known but also important service is the role they play in the production of critical nutrients for marine life on the ocean’s surface.
Lophelia house bacteria on the outside of their bodies that can process waste into nitrate, an essential nutrient for phytoplankton. Currents from the Gulf Stream then bring these nutrients to the surface, fueling productivity which helps to feed the region’s wildlife including commercially important species like wreckfish and golden crab. Research on the Blake Plateau has documented this benefit.
A stunning new video provides a crash course on the Blake Plateau’s antiquity, spectacular features, and critical functions that not only benefit marine life, but also our planet.
Beyond the Blake Plateau’s remarkable corals, this ecosystem further includes unique cold methane seeps where bacteria rely on chemical energy instead of sunlight to make food for dense and distinctive communities of mussels and clams. At the water’s surface, floating Sargassum seaweed meadows shelter and feed a range of wildlife, including several threatened and endangered sea turtle species.
The Blake Plateau is more than just an ecological wonder. It holds cultural and spiritual significance — for the Gullah/Geechee people, it represents the final leg of the Middle Passage. Blake Plateau is a sacred underwater graveyard, a resting place for those ancestors died on their forced journey.
Currently, the Blake Plateau has no durable protections from industrial activity, like oil and gas development. We can’t risk this biodiversity hotspot that contributes so much to the broader ocean ecosystem. Tell President Biden and the Council on Environmental Quality to conserve the Blake Plateau and keep it in its pristine state.
To learn more about this amazing seascape, please visit https://conserveblakeplateau.org/.
