Coral Reef Diagnostics

N. GBR - Green (AU74148)

Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation — Global Reef Expedition
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05
Country
Survey date(s)
2014-09-29
Coordinates
-13.4570, 144.0567
Coral cover
47%
Benthic transects+photo-quadrats
Observations
not yet tagged for this site
Heat stress
Today’s heat load
3 Oct 2026 · No heat stress
5-year thermal stress load
5-year mean max. degree heating weeks (DHW)
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 infoFar Northern GBR (NOAA CRW virtual station)
Survey depth (expedition team)
6.5 m
Living Oceans Foundation (LOF) benthic survey depth; no dive by Anderson at this station
Sea surface temp. (satellite)
25.1°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

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

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

Site description

Setting

Global Reef Expedition station AU74148 on Unnamed Reef 74, far northern Great Barrier Reef (-13.4570, 144.0567), surveyed on 29 September 2014 and paired with AU74147.

Coral cover

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 Far Northern GBR virtual station is 11.1 degree heating weeks.

Comparisons with other data

No other surveys have been conducted at this site to date. Within 5 km, two XL Catlin Seaview Survey stations recorded 16–32% hard coral cover between 2012 and 2016; the nearest, XL Catlin Seaview Survey at transect 15024, 0.19 km away, read 16% between 2012 and 2016.

Independent surveys nearby

Hard coral cover over time — this site and every independent station within 5 km. Programs are shown separately because they use different methods at different stations; the lines are not one comparable series.
0%12%24%36%48%201220142016XL Catlin Seaview Survey 2012: 16%XL Catlin Seaview Survey 2012: 32%XL Catlin Seaview Survey 2016: 16%XL Catlin Seaview Survey 2016: 17%LOF Global Reef Expedition 2014: 47%Year-averaged across all programs: illustrative only; the programs differ in stations and method, so no trend is claimed (3 years)
XL Catlin Seaview Survey LOF Global Reef ExpeditionYear-average (illustrative only, programs differ)

Within 5 km, 2 independent survey stations recorded hard coral cover in 4 surveys between 2012 and 2016. Of the 2 stations surveyed in more than one year, 1 declined by more than 7 points between their first and latest surveys; 1 changed by 7 points or less, inside the 7-point method-noise floor (inconclusive). Two stations share the longest span (2012–2016); one, transect 15024 (XL Catlin Seaview Survey, 0.19 km away), went from 16% in 2012 to 16% in 2016. The most recent nearby survey is from 2016, so these values predate recent heat stress. This site's own estimate (47%) sits 16 points above the range of these surveys (16–32%); the methods differ, so the comparison is context, not a like-for-like test.

Collected by other programs using different methods (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
AgencySite / locationDateHard coral cover (%)DistanceLink
XL Catlin Seaview Surveytransect 150242012–201616% (2 surveys)0.19 kmdoi:10.14264/uql.2019.930
XL Catlin Seaview Surveytransect 150222012–201617–32% (2 surveys)1.78 kmdoi: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.

© Coral Reef Diagnostics.