A new multiple-year mapping of the sea floor coordinated by NOAA has found the largest known deep-sea coral reef habitat in the world. The coral reef covers 6.4 million acres, larger than the state of Vermont, on the sea floor of the Blake Plateau, about 100 miles off the southeast coast of the U.S. With a depth of 2,600 to 3,200 feet, the Blake Plateau stretches from Miami up to Charleston. It is bordered on the east by the Blake Escarpment, which drops down to 16,000 feet. The new study, published in the journal Geomatics, says scientists identified 83,908 individual…