The secret of the world's richest underwater habitat
Researchers are unlocking the ancient secrets of the world's most diverse marine habitat. Could their discoveries help us save our oceans?
In an office wing of the Natural History Museum in London, two researchers slide open a plain storage cupboard door to reveal a hidden treasure: shelves of fossilised corals, up to 30 million years old, from the world's most diverse marine habitat. Some look like petrified brains, others like rocks with filigrane patterns.
"I like to look at things in the past and see if we can learn lessons from them," says Ken Johnson, with an eye on the fossils. Johnson is a palaeontologist and principal researcher at the museum's Earth Sciences department. Next to him stands Nadia Santodomingo, a marine biologist and geoscientist, and curator at the museum. They and their team collected the fossils in Indonesia more than a decade ago, working with colleagues from the Indonesian Geological Agency. The goal was to try and crack the secrets of an expanse of ocean known as the "coral triangle" – and, they hoped, to use those secrets to protect reefs today.
"Understanding how corals have responded to previous environmental changes can help us see how they might respond to future changes," says Johnson. In fact, the fossils not only led to a completely new perspective on marine life, but drew attention to important coral sanctuaries that had previously been overlooked – and which could become crucial refuges for species as the planet warms, the researchers say.
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