Some of Earth’s oldest creatures thrive in the dark off coasts of Carolinas, Virginia

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.”

The video was recorded off Virginia in the recently established Frank R. Lautenberg Deep-Sea Coral Protection Area, a stretch along the continental shelf that is federally protected, NOAA says. It is 38,000 square miles -- “an area approximately the size of the state of Virginia,” according to Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council.

Half the known species of coral “are found in deep, dark waters” where temperatures range from 39 to 53 degrees, NOAA officials posted. Most remain “poorly studied,” but growing evidence suggests the corals are “hotspots of biodiversity” and may hide new species, according to a NOAA report.

The video was recorded as part of NOAA’s Deep Connections 2019, an East Coast expedition that sent a remote-controlled camera to explore habits thousands of feet below the surface.

Among the other examples of corals NOAA posted on Facebook were photos of “large thickets of Lophelia pertusa coral” seen clinging to a rock shelf off South Carolina. The coral resembled white tumbleweeds and was seen at a dept of 2,920 feet, NOAA said.

This story was originally published December 6, 2019 at 4:00 PM with the headline "Some of Earth’s oldest creatures thrive in the dark off coasts of Carolinas, Virginia."