Deep in the South Pacific, scientists have explored a rare stretch of pristine corals shaped like roses off the coast of Tahiti. The reef is thought to be one of the largest found at such depths and seems untouched by climate change or human activities.

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Laetitia Hédouin said she first saw the corals during a recreational dive with a local diving club months earlier.

"When I went there for the first time, I thought, 'Wow – we need to study that reef. There's something special about that reef," said Hédouin, a researcher at the French National Center for Scientific Research in Moorea, French Polynesia.

What struck Hédouin was that the corals looked healthy and weren't affected by a bleaching event in 2019. Corals are tiny animals that grow and form reefs in oceans around the world.

Globally, coral reefs have been depleted from overfishing and pollution. Climate change is also harming delicate corals – including those in areas neighboring the newly discovered reef – with severe bleaching caused by warmer waters. Between 2009 and 2018, 14% of the world's corals were killed, according to a 2020 report by the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Project.

The newfound reef, stretching 2 miles (3 kilometers), was studied late last year during a dive expedition supported by UNESCO. Unlike most of the world's mapped corals, which are found in relatively shallow waters, this one was deeper -- between 115 feet (35 meters) to 230 feet (70 meters).

Exploring such depths posed a challenge: the deeper a diver goes underwater, the shorter amount of time can be safely spent at each depth. The team was equipped with special tanks and did 200 hours of diving to study the reef, including taking photographs, measurements and samples of the coral.

The reef is in a spot where many researchers haven't spent a lot of time in, said former National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration oceanographer Mark Eakin.

"We'll be seeing more of these discoveries as the technology is applied to these locations," said Eakin. "We may find some bigger ones somewhere, but I think this is always going to be an unusual reef."

The recent volcanic eruption in Tonga that triggered tsunami waves across the Pacific has not affected the reef off Tahiti, said Hédouin.

Hédouin hopes the research can help experts understand how the reef has been resilient to climate change and human pressures, and what role these deeper corals might play in the ocean ecosystem. More dives are planned in the coming months.

"We know very little about the ocean, and there's still so much that needs to be recorded, needs to be measured," said Julian Barbière, the head of UNESCO's marine policy and regional coordination.

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A clandestine oil deal that would have turned a scuba divers' paradise into a waypoint for Emirati oil headed for Western markets has effectively been blocked, Environmental Protection Minister Tamar Zandberg said Thursday.

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Zandberg told Army Radio that following a Justice Ministry opinion that her office had the authority to limit the activities of the government-owned corporation signed onto the deal, "the agreement cannot be realized."

"The deal exists on paper but there is no way to realize it," she said. "They won't bring in more tankers than what the current permit allows. That is, the agreement cannot be realized."

The secret deal would have significantly increased the number of oil tankers docking and unloading in the Israeli resort city of Eilat. It was struck last year between the Europe-Asia Pipeline Company, the Israeli government-owned corporation, and MED-RED Land Bridge, a joint Israeli-Emirati venture, following the historic agreement establishing formal diplomatic ties between Israel and the United Arab Emirates.

Senior officials in former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government – including  his former energy, foreign and environment ministers – said they didn't know about the deal until it was announced last year after the accords were signed at the White House.

Initially hailed as a move that could cement fledgling diplomatic ties and further Israel's energy ambitions, the new Israeli government sworn in this year ordered a review. That followed an outcry from environmental groups, who warned the increased oil tanker traffic would threaten to eradicate the Gulf of Eilat's coral reefs. The decision upset investors and risked a diplomatic spat with Israel's Gulf allies.

During the review, the Environmental Protection Ministry froze the company's planned expansion of operations, limiting the number of tankers allowed into the Gulf of Eilat and effectively blocking the deal.

Israeli environmental groups had asked the country's Supreme Court to cancel the agreement and halt oil shipments, citing the corporation's questionable safety record and the risk posed by parking supertankers alongside Eilat's fragile coral ecosystems. The groups pulled their lawsuit earlier this month following the Justice Ministry's decision to side with the Environmental Protection Ministry.

The pipeline company, known as EAPC, was founded in the 1960s to bring Iranian oil to Israel when the countries had friendly relations. Its operations are shrouded in secrecy, ostensibly for security reasons.

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Yet even with its entire eastern coast taken up with the Mediterranean Sea – and with an interest in water technology that borders almost on obsession – it has only been since about the turn of the millennium that Israeli research and development have substantively taken off in this area.

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So why now?

With 70% of the Earth's surface covered by oceans and seas, there is more to learn about those bodies of water than is humanly possible. Indeed, there is tremendous untapped potential in these uncharted waters and infinite discoveries to be made, whether in the field of health and food or a greater understanding of delicate submarine ecosystems.

Recent estimates suggest that the world's population will exceed 8 billion people by 2024, accompanied by a fear that land-based resources will come under huge strain on dry land and others in the waters. Marine biologists and researchers from the University of Haifa's Leon H. Charney School of Marine Sciences have been turning their attention to understanding more about this hidden world.

"Marine sciences are gaining more and more exposure, especially compared to the time when I started studying," said Oded Ezra, who earned an MSc from the Department of Marine Geosciences at the University of Haifa.

"The field [of gas seeps and carbonate rocks in the deep sea] is really growing. Numerous scientific and technologically oriented departments have opened at universities and new companies have been formed around the industry. Of course, there is still a lot of room for further development."

It's not only the "what," but also the "how" that these technologies and new approaches can be put to work. While carrying out submarine hydrographic and geophysical surveys, Ezra understood the range of employment opportunities in the field.

"These projects include, among other things, deep-sea floor mappings or mapping around maritime ports," he said. "There are also surveys conducted for the gas industry that include environmental monitoring, such as water and soil samples."

Whether it was synchronous or fortunate, the emergence of this research occurred around the same time that Israel discovered a large natural gas deposit off its coast approximately a decade ago. The discovery was not just an economic and political boon; it also led to new questions about what the seafloor in those areas looked like, as well as what kind of underwater life existed in these regions.

This is one of the overarching points about the seas; there are myriad utilities and applications for water, wave energy or the variations of marine life. For instance, despite the growth of civil aviation, almost all of Israel's imported and exported goods are delivered and transported by sea.

"Essentially everything goes by sea … without the sea, Israel would have no access to the world," said Professor Zvi Ben-Avraham, Israel Prize recipient and the founder and director of the Mediterranean Sea Research Center of Israel.

In addition to the transportation of goods, the sea provides Israel with the plurality of its drinking water – within the next few years, 75% of that drinking water.

"Global temperatures are rising and more areas are in danger of desertification. As a result, saltwater desalination is the only way many countries can produce reserves of drinking water, and we are seeing exactly how that is happening in Israel," explained Professor Ilana Bergman-Frank, a biological oceanographer and the director of University of Haifa's Charney School.

This also has its challenges, as desalinated water does not possess the same combination of nutrients as untreated, natural water.

At the Charney School, Ben-Avraham's idea of placing everything connected with marine studies under one roof helped create a multidisciplinary unit where related humanities could meet relevant natural and social sciences. In effect, it was an academic startup.

This was strengthened by the presence of individuals such as Tamar Lotan, head of the Department of Marine Biology at the University, who blended her extensive academic career with the creation of two successful biotech startups.

Another aspect of marine technology that is gathering pace and popularity in Israel is the use of autonomous robots. One specific application of the robots is the attempt to create clearer underwater pictures, altering a milky, mysterious blur to a much sharper image at depth. The Israeli company SEAERRA Vision, for example, has been working to develop algorithms for vision systems for scuba divers, robots and underwater vehicles for a variety of business and private sector uses. In many cases, the use of robots is crucial to enable mapping of the sea.

What does all of this mean, and what does the future have in store?

Nearly 60 years ago, US President John F. Kennedy challenged NASA scientists to explore the possibility of landing on the moon. By the end of that decade (although he would not get to see it), the task had been accomplished.

Today, more people have walked on the moon than have walked on the deepest trench of the ocean floor. Instead of looking up to the heavens as the final frontier, scientists and researchers should be looking beneath the surface of the sea, while acknowledging that understanding more about what goes on underwater will greatly benefit humanity for generations to come.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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