A giant blue hole in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef has finally been explored by a team of divers and has shown it is home to a healthy coral population.
The hole, which could be older than the famous Belize blue hole, had previously been described by geologists and is located more than 125 miles (200km) from Daydream Island off the coast of north east Australia.
Marine biologist Johnny Gaskell, who posted a breathtaking image of the blue hole on Instagram, explored the site with fellow divers to a depth of 20m (65ft), reporting healthy coral colonies despite coral bleaching in the area.
According to Gaskell’s Instagram post, the dive took extensive preparation. He said: “This Blue Hole has previously been explored and documented by geologists who suggested it could be even older than the famous Great Blue Hole, in Belize.
“Its 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. [It] was well worth it! We dived down to just over 20m, before hitting bare sediment, that slowly sloped towards the centre.
“It was great to see big healthy coral colonies. Stay tuned for video footage of the coral within,” he added.
