Mysterious giant hole could be key to saving Great Barrier Reef

Scientists have discovered a massive ancient hole in the Great Barrier Reef and they’re very excited about what it contains.

Experts dived 65 feet down into the hole, which was found in one of the least explored parts of the Australian natural wonder.

There they discovered stunningly healthy coral — a rare discovery given the reef suffers from widespread coral bleaching.

Bleaching occurs when corals are put under stress by warming seawater or some other threat and expel the algae that live in their tissue.

Marine biologist Johnny Gaskell revealed their discovery in an Instagram post showing the incredible scenic wonder.

He wrote: “This Blue Hole has previously been described by geologists who suggested it could be even older than the famous Great Blue Hole, in Belize.”

“It’s (sic) location is in one of the least explored parts Great Barrier Reef, over 200km from Daydream Island. To get there we had to travel overnight for 10 hours and time the tides perfectly… Was well worth it!”

“Inside the walls was similar to the site we explored a few weeks back, but this hole was deeper and almost perfectly circular.”

“We dived down to just over [65 feet] yesterday, before hitting bare sediment, that slowly sloped towards the center.”

“Again it was great to see big healthy coral colonies. Stay tuned for video footage of the coral within.”

View this post on Instagram

Yesterday in the Great Barrier Reef!!! After spotting this deep blue hole on google maps we decided to head far offshore, out further than our normal Reef trips to see what dwelled within. What we found inside was hard to believe considering 5 months ago a Cat 4 cyclone went straight over the top of it. At around 15m – 20m deep there was huge Birdsnest Corals (Seriatopora) and super elongated Staghorn Corals (Acropora) both of which were among the biggest and most delicate colonies I've ever seen. Totally unaffected by the cyclone. The position of this deep hole within the lagoon walls has obviously protected these corals for decades. We may very well be some of the first to dive this deep hole as it was hidden within one of the Great Barrier Reef's biggest lagoons…

A post shared by Johnny Gaskell (@johnny_gaskell) on Sep 23, 2017 at 11:51pm PDT

Earlier this year researchers warned The Great Barrier Reef is close to being wiped out and there is “zero chance” of its massive dead zones springing back to life.

This natural wonder has been hit by a series of “mass bleaching” incidents which turn the reefs into barren underwater wastelands.

Last month, researchers detected another round of mass bleaching which follows a severe event in 2016.

Their fears were then confirmed in aerial surveys of the entire 1,400 mile-long reef, which is one of the most bio-diverse places in the world.

Last year, the northern areas of the World Heritage-listed area were hardest hit, but the middle third is experiencing the worst effects.