Gregory Korte

USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — President Obama created a marine national monument in the Atlantic Ocean on Wednesday, taking executive action to protect 4,913 square miles of underwater habitats off the coast of New England.

The new marine preserve, known as the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, is the first such protected area in the U.S. waters off the Atlantic. It's similar in purpose — if not in size — to the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument off the coast of Hawaii, which was first created by President Bush and then expanded last month by President Obama. Both monuments protect marine life from drilling and commercial fishing.

Located about 130 miles southeast of Cape Cod, the Atlantic zone will prevent all drilling and most other development of the area, with exceptions for scientific research and underwater cables. Recreational fishing will be allowed, but ​commercial red crab and lobster fisheries will have seven years to find new waters.

Obama signed the designation Thursday morning in advance of Obama's speech to a State Department conference on oceans.

"The notion that the ocean I grew up with is not something I can pass on to my kids, my grandkids, is unimaginable. It's unacceptable," Obama told a group of activists, scientists and government officials at the Our Oceans conference.

"The dangerous changes in our climate caused mainly by human activity, the dead zones in our oceans cause mainly by pollution we create on land … all those things are happening now, and they’ve been happening for a long time," Obama said. "We’re going to have to act, and we’re going to have to act boldly."

Obama expands protected waters off Hawaii, creating world's largest reserve

The White House said the designation will protect three underwater canyons deeper than the Grand Canyon and four underwater mountains known as “seamounts” — places where marine life thrives, with rare species of coral, fish, whales and turtles.

Obama is using his power under the 1906 Antiquities Act, which allows both the president and Congress to designate culturally or ecologically important sites as national monuments and permanently protecting them from development. Obama has used that authority to protect more square miles of land and sea than any president in history.