It’s been two weeks since the Gambier portion of the Global Reef Expedition to French Polynesia ended. In less than two weeks, our science team will be heading back to French Polynesia to conduct research in Rangiroa. In the meantime,
Spotting new fish species that you’ve never seen before and can’t put a name to is one of the many exciting and fulfilling aspects of being a fish surveyor with The Living Oceans Foundation’s Global Reef Expedition. This latest expedition
Collecting and analyzing sediments is a key procedure in the field of Marine Geology. It may seem trivial to give so much attention to “sand”; however, the trained sedimentologist can learn a lot from a sample of ‘sand’, or sediment.
After 10 days of torrential downpours, low visibility, murky water, and heavy surge, the sun has finally returned. Our Mangareva work has been highly productive, and we’ve been fortunate to find some protection within the lagoon, but it’s been cold,
A fish sandwich? Think again. You may want to leave the fish on the reef, if you live in Mangareva. There’s a good chance it may be ciguateric and you may get ciguatera poisoning. Ciguatera fish poisoning (CFP) is seafood
Mangareva contains more diverse coral habitats than anything we have seen to date. Parts of the outside rim of the atoll are emergent. The cross sectional profile starts with a classic reef flat, 10 m wide in places and often
Cauliflower coral, in the genus Pocillopora, are among the most widely distributed and most abundant corals found on the fore reef. These branching corals are covered with small bumps (called verrucae), which contain corallites and help in the identification of
During our surveys in the Acteon group we saw very few fish. There were few sharks or other large predators and even large herbivorous fish such as surgeonfishes and parrotfishes were noticeably low in number. The Acteon fish communities were
We have arrived in Mangareva, having just completed surveys in the remote Acteon Group. Each of the four atolls we surveyed was small, about 5 to 10 km2 including the lagoon. This meant we were able to do all our
Navigation hazards are many in Hao Atoll, due to a myriad of submerged patch reefs that rise to the surface from the 60 m deep lagoon floor. These reefs are distributed in a seemingly random pattern. Some are circular and
