N. GBR - Pink (AUR607)

Setting

This site falls in a Preservation Zone, where entry itself is restricted.

General benthic features

Anderson's notes describe a typical windward reef with a fairly steep slope from the reef crest at 3-4 m to 30-35 m; coral cover was high (above 30-40%) at 3-5 m, with large areas of crustose-coralline-coated substrate and recruits between the corals. The posted frames come mostly from the shallow crest: a broad, low-relief pavement under a visibly rippled surface, lit flat and blue (e.g., Image 7, Image 10, Image 12, Image 13, Image 16, Image 18, Image 19, Image 20, Image 21, Image 22, Image 23, Image 24).

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Close overhead frames show what that pavement is made of — a tight mosaic of gray-lilac digitate and encrusting Montipora-form colonies, olive-green massive heads, small knobby colonies, brown corymbose acroporids, purple to pink crustose coralline algae, and red encrusting algae between them, with turfed dead framework and coral rubble filling the gaps (e.g., Image 8, Image 9, Image 11, Image 14, Image 15, Image 17).

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Coral cover

• Reference: Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation, Global Reef Expedition (in situ transect)
• Coral cover 35%, from the LOF-GRE in situ point-count transects (Global Reef Expedition site data, 933 sites).
• Transect mean 35 ± 7.8% SE (n = 3 transects; Living Oceans Foundation per-transect benthic data); the headline above is the expedition's station value.

Stressors

The four earliest are all close work on the same subject: bone-white, fine-branched colonies of the needle-coral growth form sitting on rock crusted in dark red encrusting algae and pink coralline, their branch tips intact and structurally sound rather than eroded, with normally pigmented olive-green knobby colonies, a cream Pocillopora, and small pale-green acroporid recruits in the same frame (e.g., Image 1, Image 2, Image 3); the fourth is a wider view of the same crusted pavement (e.g., Image 4).

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Two more white colonies appear in the set — a cream-white Pocillopora-form colony wedged between an olive-green colony and a blood-red encrusting sponge (e.g., Image 5), and a frame filled edge to edge by a single white knobby colony with rounded, swollen branch tips (e.g., Image 6).

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That is six frames carrying stark-white tissue: they are photographs of white colonies, not the basis for any bleaching figure, and nothing in the set says how much of the reef was affected. Anderson's field notes for this dive record that, as on the previous day's dives, nearly all of the Seriatopora had bleached. No crown-of-thorns starfish (COTS) or other corallivores evident.

Fish and other fauna

Fish are sparse in frame, scattered small planktivores over the flat; Anderson's notes record an aggressive blacktip reef shark on this dive (not photographed).

Comparisons with other data

No other surveys have been conducted at this site to date. Within 5 km, one independent station, AIMS manta tow at RIBBON NO 6 REEF, 1.92 km away, read 11–35% between 1994 and 2017.

Other notes

There are no topside, boat, or diver frames in this set.