Latest Coral Sea Stories
Alan McStravick for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online The farmer and the casual gardener know the damage that can be done by an outside pest. Through chemical and organic (for the more eco-conscious among them) pesticides, they are able to eradicate the small predators that threaten their ecosystem. But just how do you effectively clear out a pest when its attack is underwater? This week, a team of marine scientists from James Cook University’s (JCU) ARC Centre of Excellence for...
Brett Smith for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online As anyone who follows politics knows, public policy is a process that can take years or decades to hammer out, especially when it comes to certain issues. Unfortunately, the forces of nature are always in a state of flux, which can make it difficult to develop policy around them. With this in mind, Australian researchers set out to study the effects of climate change and temperature dynamics around the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) and its...
World's largest network of marine protected areas includes massive fully protected marine reserve in Coral Sea WASHINGTON, June 13, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Australia is expected to announce an historic decision today to create the world's largest network of marine protected areas, including a massive fully protected marine reserve in the Coral Sea, a move hailed by the Pew Environment Group. The Coral Sea no-take marine reserve, known in Australia as a national park zone,...
Australia’s sea snakes may be more in danger of extinction than previously thought, marine scientists say. New research on turtleheaded sea snakes that frequent coral reefs in Australia and nearby New Caledonia has found they are strongly attached to their home reef and rarely venture even a few kilometers to neighboring reefs. Researchers from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (CoECRS) and The University of Sydney used genetic ‘fingerprinting’ to show that this...
Researchers have partnered with Google in an effort to allow anyone with Internet access to take a virtual tour of Australia's Great Barrier Reef. The Catlin Seaview Survey announced that it will carry out the first comprehensive study of the composition and health of reef coral to an unprecedented depth range. The project's chief scientists, Ove Hoegh Guldberg, a professor at the University of Queensland, said scientific data gathered would help strengthen the understanding about how...
More than 300 eminent scientists from 21 other countries around the world today urged the Australian Federal Government to create the world’s largest no-take marine reserve in the Coral Sea. “Marine reserves are an important tool for managing and restoring ecosystems. They protect brood stocks for sustainable fisheries and rebuild distorted foodwebs. We know how well they work because of the differences that we observe again and again between different marine zones under existing...
Two eminent tropical marine scientists today urged Australians to get behind a plan by the Federal Government to transform nearly a million square kilometers of the Coral Sea into the world’s largest marine park. “The Coral Sea is one of a handful of places in the world where a very large oceanic no-take park can be created and monitored in a single national jurisdiction,” say Professors Terry Hughes and Bob Pressey of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and James...
The Great Barrier Reef is being damaged by the use of agricultural pesticides, claims a new Australian government report on water quality at the World Heritage site.According to the Australian Associated Press (AAP), the report shows that more than 60,000 pounds of pesticides leak into the Great Barrier Reef each year, while the government has deemed that the water in the reef is "moderate" in quality.The report card, which was released on Friday, was based on data collected from...
An expert said Wednesday that Australia's spectacular Great Barrier Reef is under threat from massive floods swamping the country's northeast, which are pouring harmful debris and sediment into the sea. Michelle Devlin said that the full impact of the floods is not yet known, but the influx will stress the colorful corals. "This does impact on the reef. It just impacts on the reef's resilience so you get very stressed corals, you get stressed sea grass," Devlin, a researcher at...
Australian scientists have found strange prehistoric sea life several hundreds of feet below the Great Barrier Reef, during a first-of-its-kind mission to document species under threat from warming of the world's oceans. Remote controlled cameras located at Osprey Reef, northwest of the Great Barrier Reef, have captured astonishing images of ancient sharks, giant oil fish, masses of crustaceans and a primitive shell-dwelling squid species known as the Nautilus. Lead researcher Justin Marshall...
