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Coring Coral

December 27, 2011

Using SCUBA gear so she can remain submerged, Joint Program student Hannah Barkley drills into a coral colony in Palau to extract a core sample of the skeleton. Analyzing the coral skeleton will reveal the coral’s response to ocean warming. Barkley, a graduate student in biologist Anne Cohen‘s lab, spent ten days studying Palau’s coral reefs, collecting seawater and coral samples, to examine the impacts of global warming and ocean acidification on the island nation’s reef ecosystem.(Photo by Alexi Shalapyonok, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)