A massive reef was discovered under the Great Barrier Reef

Australian researchers have investigated the traces of the geological structures hidden behind the Great Barrier Reef in Queensland and found a new reef that covers more than 6,000 square kilometers.

The new discovered sea floor revealed an area with round mounds, each measuring between 200 and 300 meters, some even standing at 30 meters depth. Researchers have found evidence of a huge reef in the last 30 years, but until now have not had a chance to examine it, according to Reuters. Royal Australian Navy aircraft flew over the area while mapping the shape, size and depth of the vast scale of the reef.

"We've now mapped over 6,000 square kilometers. That's three times the previously estimated size, spanning from the Torres Strait to just north of Port Douglas," says one of the researchers, Mardi McNeil from Queensland University of Technology. They clearly form a significant inter-reef habitat which covers an area greater than the adjacent coral reefs."

Unlike the life on the Great Barrier Reef, scientists are just beginning to get to know this new ecosystem. "For instance, what do the 10- to 20-metre-thick sediments of the bioherms tell us about past climate and environmental change on the Great Barrier Reef over this 10,000 year time-scale?" says one of the team, Robin Beaman from James Cook University in Queensland, adding that they're now going to have to figure out what kinds of life are sustained by these massive bioherms.

Using LIDAR technology (Light Detection and Ranging), which uses lasers instead of radio waves to measure the distance of the formations hidden under the sea, so that researchers were finally able to define the area. Experts have confirmed that the formations are made of Halimeda, a green alga nicknamed the Opuntia cactus because it looks like an Australian plant.