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| | 1. Reef-building corals create habitats for many other organisms. The corals reefs of the Red Sea are highly diverse and unique in the world, providing shelter and sustenance for abundant fishes and other marine life. A research partnership with KAUST (King Abdullah University of Science and Technology) in Saudi Arabia is providing WHOI scientists a rare opportunity to study the Red Sea, including an assessment of pristine coral reef ecosystems near the Saudi Arabia coast.
(Photo by Jessie Kneeland, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) | | 2. Coral reefs often extend from a sandy bottom tojust beneath the water’s surface, forming broad reef flats. Barely afoot below the surface, the flats can be a harsh environment wherecorals are exposed to high wave action and intense solar radiation.Through a collaborative partnership with the new university KAUST in Saudi Arabia, WHOI scientists are studying unique Red Sea coral reef ecosystems, including how the effects of past and current climate change on reefs near the Saudi Arabian coast. (Photo by Jessie Kneeland, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) | | 3. Giant clams, Tridacna, can have colorful mantle tissue, including bright blue. Eight species of Tridacna, most threatened by over-harvesting, live in shallow waters of the South Pacific and Indian Oceans. This one was photographed in the Red Sea by WHOI biologist Jesús Pineda, when he was doing fieldwork in the area in May 2008.
(Photo by Jesus Pineda, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) | | 4. An inflatable boat and dive-tour
operators stand by at a coral reef's edge in the Red Sea, where WHOI
scientists are studying the unique, pristine reef ecosystems along
Saudi Arabia's coast, through a research agreement with King Abdulla
University of Science and Technology. Tropical coral reefs, a small part
of Earth’s ocean, are among the most diverse, productive, and threatened
ecosystems in the world. WHOI research on coral reefs includes studies
of how climate affects corals; how reef ecosystems are connected with
each other and with mangroves; and how corals react to environmental
stress.
(Photo by Konrad Hughen, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) | | 5. Haitham Aljahdali, of King Abdullah University of Science and
Technology, or KAUST (left) and Alaa Albarakati (center) of King
Abdulazziz University, both in Saudi Arabia, get their hands, and
everything else, dirty while preparing to cut a gravity core. The core
was taken from sediment under brine pools, an unusual feature of the
Red Sea, during an October 2008 cruise led by WHOI scientist Amy Bower
and funded by KAUST.
((Photo by Alexander Dorsk, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)) | | 6. Working off the coast of Saudi Arabia, a WHOI-led research team has been surveying and cataloging the largely unstudied coral reefs of the Red Sea. WHOI recently joined a partnership with the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology
to study the reefs, mangroves, fisheries, and water circulation of the
Red Sea and its coast, while also assisting in the development of the
academic and research potential of the new marine science center.
((Photo by Konrad Hughen, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) ) | | 7. Coral’s colors come from symbiotic algae cells
living inside individual
corals, or polyps. This “bleached” coral has expelled much of its
algae in response to the stress of unusually warm water, and the white
skeleton shows through the transparent polyps. If high temperatures are
short-lived, the coral will recover fully. A collaborative partnership with King
Abdullah University of Science and Technology
in Saudi Arabia is giving WHOI researchers access to pristine coral
reefs in the Red Sea, where they are studying the reef ecosystem.
((hoto by Jessie Kneeland, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) | | 8. WHOI geochemist Konrad Hughen drills for a core sample from a coral located in shallow water in the Honduras
Bay Islands. Researchers can use cores to assess the current health of a reef, but more often they use them to look at the climate history
recorded in the coral skeleton. Hughen and colleagues are currently
surveying reefs in the Red Sea as part of a collaboration with the new King Abdullah University of Science and Technology.
(Photo courtesy of Jessica Carilli, Scripps Institution of Oceanography) | | 9. In October 2008, researchers from WHOI
had an opportunity to investigate an unusual part of the Red Sea
where "brines" of hot, salty, mineral-rich water form near the sea floor.
Scientists aboard R/V Oceanus measured water
conditions and searched for microbes or other life adapted to the extreme
environment. The researchers used the TowCam,
a towed digital camera sled bearing water samplers and sensors—here
being lowered into the warm waters of the Red Sea. The cruise was part
of an ongoing WHOI collaborative research
program with King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, and
researchers from several countries participated.
(Photo by Alexander Dorsk, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) | | 10. As R/V Oceanus Bosun Clindor Cacho (left) watches the
oceanographic wire being pulled up out of the
water, Alaa Albarakati
of King Abdulaziz University, Saudi Arabia (standing), and WHOI researchers George Tupper
(holding bottle) and Frank Bahr (bending down) remove a Niskin bottle
from the wire. The sample bottle is filled with seawater collected far below—but the water coming up is hot and very salty. WHOI
scientist Amy Bower led this cruise in October 2008 to explore and sample an unusual
region in the Red Sea where hot brines form near the sea floor.
(Photo by Alexander Dorsk, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) | Last updated: August 10, 2009 |
