Indonesia - Halmahera: Proco

Setting

A shallow, sunlit dive on 13 August 2026 at 26–27°C.

General benthic features

The dominant impression is diversity of growth form. Single frames carry corymbose and digitate Acropora in salmon, mauve, olive, and pale green, tabulate Acropora plates up to a meter or more across with crisp white growth margins, columnar and digitate Porites with rounded pale tips, gray massive Porites domes, meandroid Symphyllia- and Lobophyllia-type brains, foliose Turbinaria and Montipora whorls, Pocillopora, Millepora-type fire coral, and free-living fungiids, all within a few meters of one another (e.g., Image 1, Image 2, Image 4, Image 6, Image 8, Image 18, Image 20, Image 23, Image 25, Image 28, Image 30, Image 31, Image 32, Image 33, Image 41, Image 42, Image 46, Image 52, Image 53, Image 54).

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The invertebrate background is unusually colorful: large scarlet, crimson, and orange barrel and encrusting sponges, brown and red gorgonian sea fans, purple and mauve soft corals, black-coral bushes off the drop-off, tunicates, and a blue Linckia sea star (e.g., Image 9, Image 11, Image 15, Image 16, Image 19, Image 21, Image 24, Image 29, Image 40, Image 44, Image 47, Image 49, Image 50, Image 51).

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Toward the drop-off the mixed assemblage gives way to broad, near-continuous pale gray staghorn Acropora thickets blanketing the slope into blue water (e.g., Image 12, Image 22).

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Coral cover

• Reference: Claude CV point count (this site's photos)
• Coral cover: 32% — a blind Claude computer-vision point count of 227 of Anderson's unedited photographs (20 points per photo; water, fish, and obstructions excluded). Other computer-vision methods are listed in the method table.

Stressors

One brain-type massive colony carries several sharply bounded white patches in the valleys between its ridges, recent mortality, cause not stated (e.g., Image 8).

Fish and other fauna

Fish were dense throughout: anthias, chromis, fusiliers, glassfish under the sponge overhangs, and butterflyfish over the crest.

Comparisons with other data

We found no other surveys at this site as of 2026. If you would like to share yours, please email us.

Other notes

The profile reached 26.9 m, but Anderson's field note explains why the imagery is overwhelmingly bright and shallow (e.g., Image 17): "stayed at 2–3 m for most of the dive since light was better and there were so many beautiful scleractinians."

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