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Drilling for Climate Clues

May 26, 2008

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)