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Researchers from Nuytco Research and the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society surveyed a glass sponge reef located in the Howe Sound near Vancouver, Canada. They explored the reef for the very first time using the Aquarius submersible and have planned a total of six sub dives for the full survey.

For many years, scientists believed that glass sponges had gone extinct in the Mesozoic Era 160-million years ago. But in 1986, oceanographers were shocked to discover a living 9,000 year-old glass sponge reef in British Columbia.

The living glass sponges of the Howe Sound reef grow on top of the skeletons of their dead, creating a massive reef—a feature that is unique to the glass sponge reefs of British Columbia. This particular reef was discovered in 2008.

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