Australian Institute of Marine Science
Coral Reef Diagnostics

N. GBR - Pink (AUCT49)

Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation — Global Reef Expedition
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Part of the regional summaries: Australia (GBR) - Far North: Pink stations (Preservation Zone reefs) and Australia (GBR)

05
Coral Health Index: TBD
Photo: Anderson Mayfield/Coral Reef Diagnostics
Country
Australia
Survey date(s)
2014-09-11
Coordinates
-14.5579, 145.5849
Coral cover
13%
Benthic transects+photo-quadrats
Observations
not yet tagged for this site
Heat stress
Today’s heat load
24.8°C0.0°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 infoNorthern GBR (NOAA CRW virtual station)
Photographs
33
11 shown on this page
Site summary

The base of Carter Reef's largest bommie, which Anderson called beautiful but low in coral below 7-8 m: dead branch framework, sediment-covered rubble, and scattered colonies, with dense Acropora only on the shallow crest. A 1.5 m gray reef shark, big snappers, sweetlips, and a stingray passed by, and no bleaching, disease, or crown-of-thorns were noted. Surveyed on the Living Oceans Foundation's Global Reef Expedition.

Max. depth dived
13.2 m
dive-log maximum
Sea surface temp. (satellite)
24.8°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
Bottom time
68 min
in at 08:55

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

Six 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, Yonge, Hicks, and Carter Reefs, northern Great Barrier Reef (Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation; opens in a new window)

5 of the 11 photographs on this page are shown beside the text that discusses them under "Site description" below.

67891011

Photo credit & attribution

Site description

Setting

Carter Reef sits in a Preservation (Pink) Zone.

General benthic features

Two frames have the yellow transect tape hanging vertically down a bommie flank: around it, gnarled dark branching colonies and a lot of dead branch framework, an orange sponge, a mauve pocilloporid, and clean white sand running away at the base (e.g., Image 4, Image 5).

4Image 45Image 5

Two more look along the deeper reef, where cover thins to scattered mounding colonies, a pale Porites, and sediment-dusted pavement dropping into blue (e.g., Image 2, Image 3).

2Image 23Image 3

Only the shallowest frame is dense: a bommie crest carrying cream corymbose Acropora, a honeycombed mounding faviid, and maroon plating colonies, standing over rubble (e.g., Image 1).

1Image 1

Elsewhere cover came from sediment-covered rubble with patches of Seriatopora hystrix and Stylophora pistillata, fire coral, and branching Acropora.

Coral cover

Fish and other fauna

A 1.5 m gray reef shark cruised past, along with big snappers, sweetlips, and a stingray, and no bleaching, disease, or COTS were noted.

Comparisons with other data

No other surveys have been conducted at this site to date. Within 5 km, nine independent stations (AIMS LTMP, AIMS manta tow, and XL Catlin Seaview Survey) recorded 3.9–73% hard coral cover between 1993 and 2023; the nearest, AIMS manta tow at CARTER REEF, 0.90 km away, read 3.9–35% between 1993 and 2023.

Dive record

Anderson's first Carter Reef dive, on 11 September 2014, worked the base of the site's largest bommie alongside other members of the survey team, in a zone he called "beautiful but low coral cover below 7-8 m."

Independent surveys nearby

Data availability near this site
Agency / programYear(s)Stations / distanceLink
AIMS LTMP1993–20226 stations, 3.22–4.84 kmRecords ↓
AIMS manta tow1993–20231 station, 0.90 kmRecords ↓
XL Catlin Seaview Survey2012–20172 stations, 3.63–4.81 kmRecords ↓
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%20%40%60%80%199320082023AIMS manta tow 1993: 16%AIMS manta tow 1995: 18%AIMS manta tow 1996: 17%AIMS manta tow 1998: 18%AIMS manta tow 1999: 30%AIMS manta tow 2000: 30%AIMS manta tow 2001: 31%AIMS manta tow 2002: 35%AIMS manta tow 2003: 33%AIMS manta tow 2004: 21%AIMS manta tow 2005: 29%AIMS manta tow 2006: 14%AIMS manta tow 2007: 14%AIMS manta tow 2008: 14%AIMS manta tow 2009: 15%AIMS manta tow 2011: 21%AIMS manta tow 2013: 13%AIMS manta tow 2015: 9.7%AIMS manta tow 2017: 3.9%AIMS manta tow 2019: 6.7%AIMS manta tow 2021: 18%AIMS manta tow 2022: 29%AIMS manta tow 2023: 33%AIMS LTMP 1993: 7.5%AIMS LTMP 1993: 7.6%AIMS LTMP 1993: 12%AIMS LTMP 1993: 14%AIMS LTMP 1993: 15%AIMS LTMP 1993: 17%AIMS LTMP 1994: 16%AIMS LTMP 1994: 20%AIMS LTMP 1994: 20%AIMS LTMP 1994: 23%AIMS LTMP 1994: 23%AIMS LTMP 1994: 26%AIMS LTMP 1995: 25%AIMS LTMP 1995: 28%AIMS LTMP 1995: 28%AIMS LTMP 1995: 31%AIMS LTMP 1995: 33%AIMS LTMP 1995: 34%AIMS LTMP 1996: 29%AIMS LTMP 1996: 34%AIMS LTMP 1996: 36%AIMS LTMP 1997: 38%AIMS LTMP 1997: 45%AIMS LTMP 1997: 47%AIMS LTMP 1997: 55%AIMS LTMP 1997: 57%AIMS LTMP 1998: 44%AIMS LTMP 1998: 58%AIMS LTMP 1998: 59%AIMS LTMP 1998: 60%AIMS LTMP 1998: 64%AIMS LTMP 1998: 73%AIMS LTMP 1999: 47%AIMS LTMP 1999: 56%AIMS LTMP 1999: 58%AIMS LTMP 1999: 58%AIMS LTMP 1999: 65%AIMS LTMP 1999: 65%AIMS LTMP 2000: 51%AIMS LTMP 2000: 58%AIMS LTMP 2000: 58%AIMS LTMP 2000: 62%AIMS LTMP 2000: 62%AIMS LTMP 2000: 64%AIMS LTMP 2001: 55%AIMS LTMP 2001: 55%AIMS LTMP 2001: 58%AIMS LTMP 2001: 61%AIMS LTMP 2001: 63%AIMS LTMP 2001: 66%AIMS LTMP 2002: 51%AIMS LTMP 2002: 51%AIMS LTMP 2002: 58%AIMS LTMP 2002: 59%AIMS LTMP 2002: 62%AIMS LTMP 2003: 51%AIMS LTMP 2003: 55%AIMS LTMP 2003: 56%AIMS LTMP 2003: 61%AIMS LTMP 2003: 62%AIMS LTMP 2003: 64%AIMS LTMP 2004: 32%AIMS LTMP 2004: 42%AIMS LTMP 2004: 43%AIMS LTMP 2004: 44%AIMS LTMP 2004: 50%AIMS LTMP 2004: 51%AIMS LTMP 2006: 23%AIMS LTMP 2006: 27%AIMS LTMP 2006: 27%AIMS LTMP 2006: 30%AIMS LTMP 2006: 34%AIMS LTMP 2008: 31%AIMS LTMP 2008: 31%AIMS LTMP 2008: 34%AIMS LTMP 2008: 34%AIMS LTMP 2008: 38%AIMS LTMP 2008: 40%AIMS LTMP 2010: 36%AIMS LTMP 2010: 40%AIMS LTMP 2010: 42%AIMS LTMP 2010: 43%AIMS LTMP 2010: 44%AIMS LTMP 2010: 45%AIMS LTMP 2012: 17%AIMS LTMP 2012: 24%AIMS LTMP 2012: 25%AIMS LTMP 2012: 32%AIMS LTMP 2012: 34%AIMS LTMP 2014: 13%AIMS LTMP 2014: 18%AIMS LTMP 2014: 22%AIMS LTMP 2014: 23%AIMS LTMP 2014: 27%AIMS LTMP 2014: 28%AIMS LTMP 2016: 3.9%AIMS LTMP 2016: 7.7%AIMS LTMP 2016: 8.2%AIMS LTMP 2016: 8.8%AIMS LTMP 2016: 9.0%AIMS LTMP 2016: 9.6%AIMS LTMP 2018: 7.2%AIMS LTMP 2018: 11%AIMS LTMP 2018: 12%AIMS LTMP 2018: 13%AIMS LTMP 2018: 18%AIMS LTMP 2020: 17%AIMS LTMP 2020: 20%AIMS LTMP 2020: 22%AIMS LTMP 2020: 22%AIMS LTMP 2020: 24%AIMS LTMP 2020: 25%AIMS LTMP 2021: 27%AIMS LTMP 2021: 29%AIMS LTMP 2021: 29%AIMS LTMP 2021: 30%AIMS LTMP 2021: 31%AIMS LTMP 2022: 28%AIMS LTMP 2022: 29%AIMS LTMP 2022: 31%AIMS LTMP 2022: 34%AIMS LTMP 2022: 34%AIMS LTMP 2022: 36%XL Catlin Seaview Survey 2012: 17%XL Catlin Seaview Survey 2014: 8.7%XL Catlin Seaview Survey 2016: 6.4%XL Catlin Seaview Survey 2017: 5.9%LOF Global Reef Expedition 2014: 13%Year-averaged across all programs: illustrative only; the programs differ in stations and method, so no trend is claimed (31 years)
AIMS manta tow AIMS LTMP XL Catlin Seaview Survey LOF Global Reef ExpeditionYear-average (illustrative only, programs differ)

Within 5 km, 9 independent survey stations recorded hard coral cover in 163 surveys between 1993 and 2023. Of the 8 stations surveyed in more than one year, 7 were scored by divers or by people annotating photographs: 7 increased (by 10.8–26.0 points) between their first and latest surveys. The other 1 was scored by automated image analysis: declined by more than 7 points. The longest record, CARTER REEF (AIMS manta tow, 0.90 km away), went from 16% in 1993 to 33% in 2023. Since 2021, station-year means average 30% (range 18–36%; n = 15 station-years from 15 surveys). This site's own estimate (13%) sits 5 points below the recent range up to 2 km away (18–33%); the methods differ, so the comparison is context, not a like-for-like test.

Collected by other programs using different methods (AIMS manta tow is a towed visual estimate in categorical bins; AIMS LTMP uses fixed photo-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
AgencySite / locationDateHard coral cover (%)DistanceLink
AIMS manta towCARTER REEF1993–20233.9–35% (23 surveys)0.90 kmdoi:10.25845/5c09b0abf315a
AIMS LTMPCARTER REEF site 31993–20227.7–59% (range of yearly means; 22 surveys)3.22 kmdoi:10.25845/5c09bc4ff315c
AIMS LTMPCARTER REEF site 21993–20228.8–65% (range of yearly means; 22 surveys)3.51 kmdoi:10.25845/5c09bc4ff315c
AIMS LTMPCARTER REEF site 11993–20227.5–73% (range of yearly means; 22 surveys)3.84 kmdoi:10.25845/5c09bc4ff315c
AIMS LTMPYONGE REEF site 11993–20229.6–66% (range of yearly means; 23 surveys)3.84 kmdoi:10.25845/5c09bc4ff315c
AIMS LTMPYONGE REEF site 21993–20227.6–64% (range of yearly means; 23 surveys)4.25 kmdoi:10.25845/5c09bc4ff315c
AIMS LTMPYONGE REEF site 31993–20223.9–55% (range of yearly means; 23 surveys)4.84 kmdoi:10.25845/5c09bc4ff315c
XL Catlin Seaview Surveytransect 120052012–20175.9–17% (4 surveys)3.63 kmdoi:10.14264/uql.2019.930
XL Catlin Seaview Surveytransect 12028201224%4.81 kmdoi:10.14264/uql.2019.930

Data & links

All images from Coral Reef Diagnostics. 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.