Core Question

WHOI scientist Anne Cohen and Summer Student Fellow Chris Kelly study the core of a coral taken in Palau, a coral reef archipelago located in the far western tropical Pacific. For his summer research project, Kelly studied how corals on Palau grow in response to climate variability in the Pacific, which experiences water temperature warming and cooling cycles about every 20 to 30 years. He used CT scans to make internal, three-dimensional images that allowed him to measure the corals’ growth rates over the last century. (Photo by Tom Kleindinst, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)