Surveying Rangiroa: Filling in the Gaps of Coral Reef Research Mission

Filling in the Gaps

March 12, 2013

Written by Brian Beck, PhD

It was back in November when we first conducted coral reef research in Rangiroa. A delayed start to that research mission meant we were not able to complete all that we wanted to then, so we are now back filling in the gaps, surveying Rangiroa.

The ring of land that makes up the atoll isn’t very high and there are often gaps and breaks in the ring

Last year we focused our efforts on the northern part of the atoll with 4 dives on the outside of the atoll and five dives in the lagoon. Now in just the first two days of surveying Rangiroa again, we have added an additional 6 research sites on the outside of the atoll.

Surveying Rangiroa: A map of Rangiroa showing the surveys done in November (red) and the surveys already done on this mission (green).

Reef communities can be very different from one side of the island to the other and this is why we want to take the time surveying Rangiroa as much as possible. We will keep you updated as the days go by and we add more research sites.

The reef on the outside of the atoll can quickly slope down to well over 40 meters depth

Photos by 1, Badi Samaniego, 3, Brian Beck

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