Researchers from Temple University’s College of Science and Technology announced on Mar. 9 that they have helped discover what may be one of the largest cold-water coral reef systems in the world off the coast of Argentina. The team is also working to restore these deep-sea ecosystems, which are largely unexplored due to their depth and remoteness.
The discovery is significant because cold-water reefs play a crucial role in marine biodiversity, carbon sequestration, and nutrient cycling. Unlike shallow water reefs such as Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, these deep-sea systems remain mostly hidden and have only recently become accessible for scientific study with advanced technology.
Erik Cordes, professor and chair of Temple’s Department of Biology, said, “We now think Argentina is home to one of the largest reef systems on earth. Something that we didn’t really know existed a year ago now turns out to be one of the largest cold-water coral ecosystems on the planet.” Cordes and Morgan Will, a biology PhD candidate at Temple, are part of a $1.5 million research project led by the G20 Coral Research and Development Accelerator Platform (CORDAP), collaborating with institutions in Argentina.
A major component of their work involves using remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) like SuBastian to map and characterize healthy reef conditions. These efforts help establish baselines for future studies on human impacts such as fishing trawls or oil development. “We wanted to create a baseline, so that if we come back and see effects of human impacts, we know how to measure that against what a healthy reef should look like,” Cordes said.
Cordes explained that recent estimates suggest cold-water coral reefs may cover twice as much area as shallow water reefs globally. In Argentina’s deep sea, they found extensive Bathelia candida coral formations previously unknown at this scale. “That really surprised me,” Cordes said. “I knew we were going to find coral mounds, but just how far they extended was really remarkable.” He added that these reefs are hotspots for biodiversity and support productive fisheries by cycling nutrients from deep waters.
Restoration efforts include building artificial coral skeletons from cement and crushed coral sand to simulate habitats for wildlife return—a method adapted from projects addressing damage caused by events like the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Will spent much of her time deploying these structures during expeditions in Argentine waters.
The project has also fostered collaboration between U.S. universities such as Temple and Lehigh University with Argentinian partners through researcher exchanges and shared resources. CORDAP is funding new equipment like a deep-sea camera platform for local scientists while Cordes provides guidance on its use.
“Much of this project is really focused on improving the capacity to do deep sea research in Argentina, because it just wasn’t there until now,” Cordes said. He emphasized that building expertise is as important as acquiring new technology: “The capacity to conduct this research isn’t just in the hardware. It’s in the knowledge of how to organize and conduct an offshore cruise… so we’re happy to be a resource and a partner.”
