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Jan 26 2010 - 11:45am
Flower-like zoanthids, relatives of coral, carpet a hydrothermal vent. This species of zoanthid is the first ever discovered at a hydrothermal vent. See more pictures of incredible deep sea diversity at our slideshow!
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Jul 27 2011 - 12:30pm
I still haven’t gotten beyond the ‘gee whiz’ factor of studying communities of animals in deep-sea coral habitats. Climbing over undersea mountains and along the steep cliffs of submarine canyons using subs and ROVs, I’ve had the opportunity to see some species of deep-sea fishes alive for the very...
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Jul 27 2011 - 10:49am
The branches of a primnoid coral in the genus Calyptrophora provide a habitat for galathaoid crabs. Learn more about the deep-sea coral reefs in our Deep-sea Corals article.
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Jun 9 2011 - 9:30am
It's a new age of discovery for scientists studying deep-sea corals.
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Jun 7 2011 - 9:10am
Unlike the shallow tropical coral reef pictured on the top, the deep-sea Oculina reef at bottom does not require sunlight. Learn more in the article "Coral Gardens of the Deep Sea."
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Jul 27 2011 - 9:14am
J.
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Jun 20 2012 - 9:22am
We have arrived as the advanced scouting party to the scene of this year's field work location: Pemuteran, a small fishing village in northwest Bali. More importantly, we are sitting squarely at the heart of marine biodiversity at the "Coral Triangle" -- that small part of the globe where, if space...
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Apr 14 2011 - 11:19pm
A photo taken at a reef near Bocas del Toro, Panama. The reef suffered a mass bleaching event in the summer of 2010, when water temperatures were unusually high. In this photo, healthy brown coral gives way to the frontlines of disease.
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Jul 27 2011 - 9:54am
Imagine you’re an alien seeing Planet Earth for the first time. What do you see from your spacecraft? A blue planet with over 70% of its surface covered by ocean. From space it’s obvious how important the ocean is to our planet. But we actually know very little about what lives at the bottom of the...
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Jul 27 2011 - 9:31am
The Johnson-Sea-Link submersible launches to study cold-water corals off Florida in 2009. Explore more the multimedia feature "Coral Gardens of the Deep Sea."
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Aug 28 2012 - 9:17am
The Census of Marine Life brought together coral reef scientists from around the world to learn more about the biodiversity of the world's reefs and to develop new methods of measuring that diversity. Two major outcomes of the coral reef project of the Census are the methodolgies for standardized...
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Jan 8 2013 - 10:21am
The toothy goby or common ghost goby (Pleurosicya mossambica) lives among soft corals and sponges in the Indo-Pacific ocean. The relationship it has with its host is commensal, which means the goby benefits from the protection and habitat in the corals, but the coral doesn't get hurt or benefit...
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Apr 20 2012 - 1:22pm
On April 20, 2010, an explosion on the oil-drilling rig Deepwater Horizon caused the largest marine oil spill in US history, gushing nearly 5 million barrels of crude oil over the course of three months.
In the two years since, researchers have been hard at work studying the impacts of the spill....
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Oct 14 2010 - 5:24pm
A piece of the Institute For Figuring’s Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef known as the Ladies Silurian Atoll. The HCCR exhibit was on display in the Sant Ocean Hall at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, from October 16, 2010 through April 24, 2011.
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Jun 8 2011 - 5:25pm
Sample the surprising diversity of deep-sea corals. See some of the ways they differ in color, shape, and size. Explore more in the multimedia feature "Coral Gardens of the Deep Sea."
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Oct 2 2012 - 3:04pm
This colorful coral lives in Australia's Great Barrier Reef. On the whole, this coral reef is the largest single structure built by living organisms and can be seen from space! Although more than one-third of the reef is protected from fishing and other human impacts, it is still 50% smaller than...
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Jun 7 2011 - 12:32pm
This bubblegum coral (Paragorgia arborea) has a fanlike shape. It is growing 1,310 m (4,298 ft) deep on the Davidson Seamount southwest of Monterey, California. Learn more about deep-sea corals in the multimedia feature "Coral Gardens of the Deep Sea."
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Oct 13 2010 - 10:51am
For those of you who have had the opportunity to visit a coral reef, you know that it’s an experience you are unlikely to forget.
Coral reefs are among the world’s most magnificent ecosystems. Their beauty alone makes them incalculably valuable, but beyond aesthetics, their importance to both...
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Mar 22 2011 - 10:18am
A still from The Coral Gardener, part of the 19th Annual Environmental Film Festival in the Nation's Capital. The film is about Austin Bowden-Kerby, a man who gardens corals to help rebuild reefs.
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Jul 27 2011 - 10:44am
Dr. Amy Baco-Taylor dives to deep-sea environments to study corals and the invertebrates that live in them.
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Oct 8 2012 - 12:58pm
A coral (Montastraea faveolata) has just spawned. Each of the hundreds of polyps living in the colony releases a small pink bundle of sperm and eggs. Read more about coral spawing and watch a spawning event.
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May 11 2011 - 12:13pm
Sea stars are important members of marine ecosystems, especially in the tropics. We may think of tropical coral reefs as being home mainly to fish and corals, but in fact these habitats are home to a huge diversity of ecologically important invertebrates.
Sometimes, human influences can throw off...
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Oct 2 2012 - 2:28pm
Australia’s Great Barrier Reef (or the GBR as it is known to reef aficionados) stretches for more than 2,300 kilometers (over 1,429 miles) and can be seen from outer space. This largest barrier reef in the world is both a national icon and a global treasure that was recognized as a World Heritage...
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Oct 24 2012 - 10:52am
Coral sand is aptly named: it's sand made up of tiny bits of coral and other ocean animals such as foraminifera, molluscs, and crustaceans. This picture -- at 100x magnification -- took 18th place in Nikon's 2012 Small World contest, which celebrates scientific photos taken under the microscope. It...
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