Wagner Seamount had never been surveyed below 1,200 meters before this expedition. Over three dives, our ROV documented a cold-water coral garden spanning roughly 400 meters of the seamount’s northern flank, dominated by bamboo and bubblegum coral colonies estimated at several centuries old based on comparable growth-rate studies.
We collected tissue samples from six coral specimens under a research permit for genetic sequencing, aimed at determining whether this population is connected to or isolated from coral communities on neighboring seamounts. Results are pending at an external lab.
No physical samples were removed beyond the permitted tissue clippings — the coral structures themselves were left undisturbed and their exact GPS coordinates withheld from this public writeup at the request of the permitting agency, pending a protected-area designation review.