Located 65 feet to 82 feet below the surface in the Tasman Sea, the reef is the southernmost reef in the Pacific.
Previously, the reef covered an area 20 times its current size, and researchers guess that the reef was submerged about 7,000 years ago, probably because of a sudden sea level rise, according to Science Daily.
Coral reefs are sensitive biomes that indicate changes in sea environment. The majority of modern coral reefs exist near the equator in warm, shallow water. Relicts from the newly discovered reef indicate that in the past, reefs also lived further south of the equator.
