About 100 miles offshore the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida is the world’s largest deep-sea coral province—the Blake Plateau.

Scientists worldwide have called for strong protections for at least 30 percent of the world’s ocean to preserve biodiversity. But less than 1 percent of the Southeast’s waters are strongly conserved.

Fueled by the powerful Gulf Stream, Blake Plateau displays dynamic ocean ecosystems from surface to seabed: its pervasive Sargassum seaweed meadows, methane seeps, and deep-sea corals support a diversity of marine life.

Tuna, billfish, sharks, sea turtles, seabirds, and whales all depend on a healthy Blake Plateau.

Underwater lies a breathtaking seascape of tens of thousands of ancient deep-sea coral mounds, some towering hundreds of feet above the seafloor.

It took tens of thousands of years to develop—some corals grow only millimeters a year and all are highly vulnerable to disturbance.

The Stetson/Richardson Complex (shown here) and the Central Blake Knolls are key biodiversity hotspots—and they lie in deeper and colder water.

As our ocean warms, these areas will provide crucial refuge for deep-sea reef-building corals and marine life in a warming world.

Corals provide food and shelter from predators for fish and shellfish, such as commercially valuable wreckfish and golden crab. In all, nearly 100 deep-sea fish species have been identified among the Blake Plateau reefs.

Endangered and threatened juvenile sea turtles can spend more than a decade drifting among floating mats of Sargassum seaweed seeking refuge and food.