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Today, 25 April 2015, marked the 100th anniversary of the historical event whereupon the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) landed on the beaches of Gallipoli, Turkey. Falkor’s crew and visiting science party took time in the morning to commemorate the selfless heroism of the troops that sacrificed their lives so that, not only … Continued
To paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld “There are known knowns… there are known unknowns… and there are unknown unknowns”. Today we went searching for unknown unknowns — that is “bumps” in old admiralty charts of the seafloor that indicated seamounts or shoals on the shelf break north of Scott Reef. Little was known of these features before … Continued
Today Falkor visited Vulcan Shoal, the second of four submerged or ‘hidden’ reefs that will be surveyed during the cruise. This oval shaped shoal 7km in length and 3km wide, rises steeply from depths of around 180 meters and has a relatively flat plateau at the top around 24 meters. At Vulcan Shoal, the research … Continued
The Sahul Shelf is a very large extension of the northwest Australian continental shelf reaching north and northwest then deepening steeply into the Timor Trough. At the western margin of this region lies Ashmore Reef, Scott Reef, and the Rowley Shoals, which represent fantastic coral reefs of classic nature with steep rocky drop offs covered … Continued
The goal of today’s field project was to deploy instruments that will help us understand and predict the temperature of the water in coral reef habitats. This project is motivated by the connection between elevated sea temperatures and coral bleaching. Corals are sensitive to high temperatures, and will expel symbiotic algae if water temperatures are … Continued
I started my PhD this year at University of Western Australia (UWA), working with Ryan Lowe who is also currently on Falkor. I am collecting data to investigate the nutrient dynamics and productivity of Scott Reef, and how this relates to the physical oceanographic processes over the system. Modelling has shown that open ocean water … Continued
“All models are wrong. Some models are useful” – George E.P. Box, Mathematician Predicting the ocean physical environment – the tides, currents, water temperature, etc., requires a mathematical model capable of capturing the important physical processes. Luckily for us, Isaac Newton discovered many moons ago that force equals mass times acceleration that in turn led to … Continued
During this Falkor Cruise, in addition to Scott Reef, we will be exploring other deeper coral reefs in remote areas of the Timor Sea. The extent of these deeper reefs, also known as shoals, form a very significant network of coral reef habitat between Indonesia and Australia. We have only recently started to document the … Continued
Today we start mapping the pathway between the surrounding ocean and the amazing coral population of the Scott Reef system. Due to the lack of rainfall and strong heating in the region, the ocean has a very strong vertical temperature gradient – as much as 30 °C at the surface, and then colder as you … Continued
Over the past few evenings co-cruise leader Dr. Andrew Heyward has been usingFalkor’s Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) to explore the deeper mesophotic coral communities of Scott Reef. Shown here is a compilation video of the ROV dives on Scott Reef over the past few nights. The video has been put together by Dr. Andrew Heyward. Dr. … Continued
