Oceanography

A black deepsea coral found about 400 meters from Oahu and the Big Island in Hawaii is more than 4,000 years old — making it the oldest marine organism ever found, according to researchers from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Stanford University and the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Using a manned deep-sea research submersible samples were collected at the Makapuu and Lanikai deep-sea coral beds off the coast of Oahu, Keahole Point deep-sea coral bed off the coast of the Big Island and Cross Seamount about 100 miles south of Oahu.