Rost Reef

The Rost reef is found in Nordland located away from the Norwegian coast. It is considered to be the largest cold-water coral reef that lives in the frigid waters of Norway. The Rost Reef is about 40km long and its size is measured to be at least twice the actual size of Manhattan, USA.

The massive coral reef in this Norwegian continental shelf or the Rost Reef was discovered in 2000 using the echo sound equipment. The temperature of the waters near the bottom of the Rost coral reef is two degrees centigrade only but it is the home to profuse marine population that ranges from plankton to fish.

The subsistence of such deep-water coral reefs was widely acknowledged for centuries by the local fishermen as well as marine scientists that that flourished unaffected by the frozen waters of Norway. But it was only recently in the year 2000, the research was brought into public and the whole world came to realize the enormity of the lively Rost coral reef that persist in these freezing waters.

The discoveries of the massive coral reef of the Norwegian continental shelf made it clear that the coral reefs can not only survive in the tepid waters of the tropics but also in deep cold waters near the Arctic circle.

The discovery of the Norwegian reefs was made possible with active use of technologically developed equipments like the video camera systems that is used for oil exploration which helped the researchers of the University of Plymouth in the United Kingdom to reach the depths of this freezing zone of the Earth to explore the corals and its surrounding marine life for the very first time in 2000.