Any ocean research and surveyance crew heading into the sea hopes to make exciting discoveries. For those at the Geological Survey of Canada in the 1980s, their trips were no different. “Our objective was to map and understand submarine geo-hazards that posed a risk to coastal populations and seabed infrastructure, provide an interpretation of Quaternary marine geoscience, including present-day issues such as sea level, and map benthic habitat,” says Dr Vaughn Barrie, now Emeritus Research Scientist at the Geological Survey of Canada at the Institute of Ocean Sciences.

When the side-scan sonar first picked up unexpected mound features in the Hecate Strait and Queen Charlotte Sound, which runs along the west coast of Canada, nobody expected them to be ancient yet living glass sponge reefs, especially since reef-building glass sponges were thought to have gone extinct during the Cretaceous period.

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Read the full story From Mapping to Marine Protected Area: The Story of the Hecate Strait Glass Sponge Reefs at Seabed 2030.