N. GBR - Blue (AU3996)

Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation — Global Reef Expedition

Part of the regional summaries: Australia (GBR) - Far North: Blue stations (Habitat Protection Zone reefs) and Australia (GBR)

Country

Australia

Survey date(s)

2014-09-19

Coordinates

-11.2401, 143.2625

Coral cover

47%

Benthic transects+photo-quadrats

Observations

not yet tagged for this site

Heat stress

Today’s heat load

25.2°C 0.0°C-weeks

3 Oct 2026 · No heat stress

5-year thermal stress load

5-year mean max. degree heating weeks (DHW)

11.1°C-weeksⁱ

2021–2025

NOAA Coral Reef Watch — Far Northern GBR virtual station

i 5-year mean max. DHW is the mean of the annual maximum DHWs over the five complete years named above, not conditions today.

More info

Far Northern GBR (NOAA CRW virtual station)

Survey depth (expedition team)

6.3 m

Living Oceans Foundation (LOF) benthic survey depth; no dive by Anderson at this station

Sea surface temp. (satellite)

25.0°C

satellite sea surface temperature (SST) on the survey date (NOAA Coral Reef Watch, Far Northern GBR), not an in-water reading; it is the warmest-pixel (90th percentile) reading in the station area and can run 1–1.5°C above the reef

Five other CRD dive sites within 5 km shown in orange — click a marker to open its page.

🗺 Detailed map of the Global Reef Expedition dive sites, Milman, Monkman, Parkinson, and unnamed reefs, northern Great Barrier Reef (Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation; opens in a new window)

Site description

Setting

Global Reef Expedition station AU3996 on Unnamed Reef 39, far northern Great Barrier Reef (-11.2401, 143.2625), surveyed on 19 September 2014. The expedition's own site table classifies AU3996 as a sheltered mid shelf reef on an exposed aspect.

General benthic features

Alongside the hard coral already reported for this site, the same transects recorded 1.5% crustose coralline algae, 16% turf, 1.6% macroalgae, and 1.4% cyanobacteria. Non-living substrate came to 15% dead coral, 7.9% rubble, and 8.0% sand. These figures come from the expedition's own 933-site benthic master and are survey results, not photographic estimates.

Coral cover

Reference: Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation, Global Reef Expedition (in situ transect)
Transect mean 45 ± 6.6% SE (n = 9 transects; Living Oceans Foundation per-transect benthic data); the headline above is the expedition's station value (the headline weights each depth equally).

Fish and other fauna

Paired fish transects recorded about 24 fish species per transect and about 8.6 kg per 100 m2 of biomass.

Comparisons with other data

No prior survey data from this site. If you would like to share yours, please email us.

Data & links

Data are from the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation Global Reef Expedition and Coral Reef Diagnostics.