Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation — Global Reef Expedition

N. GBR - Blue (AUR518)

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

Country

Australia

Survey date(s)

2014-09-05

Coordinates

-15.3750, 145.7940

Approximate position.

Coral cover

31%

Benthic transects+photo-quadrats

Observations

not yet tagged for this site

Heat stress

Today’s heat load

24.8°C 0.0°C-weeks

3 Oct 2026 · No heat stress

5-year thermal stress load

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

7.8°C-weeksⁱ

2021–2025

NOAA Coral Reef Watch — 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

Northern GBR (NOAA CRW virtual station)

Survey depth (expedition team)

6.8 m

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

Sea surface temp. (satellite)

24.7°C

satellite sea surface temperature (SST) on the survey date (NOAA Coral Reef Watch, 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

Seven independent survey stations shown with the program’s logo — click one to see how far it is from this site.

Four 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, Ribbon Reefs, northern Great Barrier Reef (Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation; opens in a new window)

Site description

Setting

Global Reef Expedition station AUR518 on Ribbon Reef 5, northern Great Barrier Reef (-15.3750, 145.7940), surveyed on 5 September 2014, in a Habitat Protection (Blue) Zone, where line fishing is permitted.

Coral cover

Reference: Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation, Global Reef Expedition (in situ transect)
The in situ benthic transects recorded 31% live coral cover against a 62% algal fraction at a survey depth of 6.8 m.
That transect value is the authoritative cover figure for this site, and no photographs exist for the site.

Stressors

Regional context only: surveyed about eighteen months before the 2016 mass bleaching, an event that severely bleached hundreds of reefs on the northern Great Barrier Reef (Hughes et al. 2017); 5-year mean annual maximum thermal stress at the Northern GBR virtual station is 7.8 degree heating weeks.

Comparisons with other data

No other surveys have been conducted at this site to date. Within 5 km, seven independent stations (Reef Check and XL Catlin Seaview Survey) recorded 7.0–53% hard coral cover between 1999 and 2017; the nearest, XL Catlin Seaview Survey at transect 12036, 0.68 km away, read 11–17% between 2012 and 2017.

Other notes

Position approximate: expedition-estimated (three decimals in the 933-site table). The field report's station table lists a Lizard Island mid-shelf point under this code, which belongs to AULK21 (its rows for 5-6 September 2014 are shifted by two stations).

Independent surveys nearby

Data availability near this site
Agency / program	Year(s)	Stations / distance	Link
Reef Check	1999–2008	3 stations, 3.63–4.09 km	Records ↓
XL Catlin Seaview Survey	2012–2017	4 stations, 0.68–3.90 km	Records ↓

Within 5 km, 7 independent survey stations recorded hard coral cover in 18 surveys between 1999 and 2017. Of the 4 stations surveyed in more than one year, 1 was scored by divers or by people annotating photographs: increased by 1.9 points between its first and latest surveys. The other 3 were scored by automated image analysis: 1 declined by more than 7 points; 2 changed by 7 points or less, inside the 7-point method-noise floor (inconclusive). Three stations share the longest span (2012–2017); one, transect 12036 (XL Catlin Seaview Survey, 0.68 km away), went from 15% in 2012 to 11% in 2017. The most recent nearby survey is from 2017, so these values predate recent heat stress. This site's own estimate (31%) sits 14 points above the range of these surveys up to 2 km away (11–17%); the methods differ, so the comparison is context, not a like-for-like test.

Collected by other programs using different methods (Reef Check uses point-intercept transects; the XL Catlin Seaview Survey uses photo-transects with automated image annotation), so these are context for the figures above, not a like-for-like comparison. Where a station was surveyed more than once, the cell shows either the range of its values or, as a single value, the mean of surveys made in one year. Station names are not dive-site names.

Independent survey data near this site
Agency	Site / location	Date	Hard coral cover (%)	Distance	Link
Reef Check	Ribbon Reef #5 southern patch	1999	53%	3.63 km	—
Reef Check	Ribbon Reef 3 - Clam Beds (Back reef slope) Site 1	2004	43%	4.09 km	—
Reef Check	Ribbon Reef 3 - Clam Beds (Back reef slope) Site 1	2005–2008	41–49% (4 surveys)	3.94 km	—
XL Catlin Seaview Survey	transect 12036	2012–2017	11–17% (4 surveys)	0.68 km	doi:10.14264/uql.2019.930
XL Catlin Seaview Survey	transect 12038	2012–2017	8.0–27% (4 surveys)	3.56 km	doi:10.14264/uql.2019.930
XL Catlin Seaview Survey	transect 12037	2012–2017	7.0–18% (3 surveys)	3.72 km	doi:10.14264/uql.2019.930
XL Catlin Seaview Survey	transect 12003	2012	38%	3.90 km	doi:10.14264/uql.2019.930

Data & links

Data are from the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation Global Reef Expedition, Coral Reef Diagnostics, and the organizations named in the data sources above.