Corals Related Content

Jul 28 2011 - 2:19pm
Peter Auster and colleagues direct a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) dive on the New England Seamounts. Three teams composed of three scientists and four ROV engineers take two 4-hour watches every day. During each dive the team decides on routes over the deep sea landscape, shoot video and still...
Jun 20 2012 - 9:22am
We have arrived as the advanced scouting party to the scene of this year's field work location: Pemuteran, a small fishing village in northwest Bali. More importantly, we are sitting squarely at the heart of marine biodiversity at the "Coral Triangle" -- that small part of the globe where, if space...
Dec 4 2009 - 3:35pm
A large white coral (Corallium sp.) grows on the Balanus Seamount, part of the New England Seamount chain. Hanging on to the coral are stalkless crinoids and orange brittlestars (Opiacantha sp.) To the left are two vase sponges. This photo was taken on May 22, 2004, at a depth of 1,745 meters (5,...
Caribbean boulder star coral (Montastrea cavernosa)
Sep 10 2010 - 3:03pm
Each month, the Naked Oceans podcast invites a leading marine researcher to pick the "critter of the month" by asking: if you were a marine organism, which one would you be? This month, Dr. Nancy Knowlton, the Sant Chair for Marine Science at NMNH makes her pick: the Caribbean boulder star coral (...
Jul 27 2011 - 11:49am
Nine years ago I was invited by a colleague to join a research team investigating deep-sea coral habitats. I was asked to examine the invertebrates associated with these ecosystems. After my first look, I was hooked! I was fascinated by the sheer beauty and complexity of these deep-sea environments...
Jun 7 2011 - 12:45pm
Tree corals like this Calyptrophora bayer can grow several meters high and resemble brightly colored trees. This deep-sea coral was found 1,683 m (5,522 ft) deep on the Davidson Seamount. See more pictures of coral in our Deep-sea Corals article.
Jul 27 2011 - 9:27am
Deep-sea corals scientist Dr. J. Murray Roberts photographed these living polyps from the Mingulay Reef Complex off Scotland in aquaria in 2010.
Oct 20 2010 - 7:59am
Welcome to Citizens of the Sea, a new blog series where ocean life comes to life. Our book by the same name came out in September, but no sooner had it gone off to the printer than new ocean stories started streaming in. So every other week, we’ll use this series to explore some interesting aspect...
Jan 26 2010 - 11:45am
These corals are dead—smothered in sediments and overgrown with algae. The reef is near Komodo Island in Indonesia. More about coral reef ecosystems can be found in our Coral Reefs featured story.
Oct 14 2010 - 11:33pm
Local crafters who contributed to the Smithsonian Community Reef proved that there is no limit to the colorful reef forms that can be created using hyperbolic crochet techniques. Their wildly imaginative pieces are on display alongside the main installation of the Institute For Figuring’s...
Jan 24 2013 - 10:32am
In this photo of a shallow coral reef in the Pacific there are three species of forams. On the left, Peneroplis planatus. In the center, Amphistegina lessonii. And on the right, Laevipeneroplis sp. Their colors come from the symbiotic algae that live inside the foram shells.
Jun 7 2011 - 10:00am
The Hawaii Undersea Research Laboratory’s Pisces V submersible is lowered for a dive to study deep-sea corals. Learn more about research into deep-sea corals in the multimedia feature "Coral Gardens of the Deep Sea."  
Jul 27 2011 - 9:31am
The Johnson-Sea-Link submersible launches to study cold-water corals off Florida in 2009. Explore more the multimedia feature "Coral Gardens of the Deep Sea." 
Jan 26 2010 - 11:45am
Shallow water coral reefs straddle the equator worldwide. The shallow coral reefs found in U.S. territorial waters are highlighted in purple in this map. More about coral reef ecosystems can be found in our Coral Reefs featured story.
Jul 27 2011 - 10:46am
Dr. Amy Baco-Taylor observed corals like these on her first submarine dive to a deep-sea coral bed off the coast of Hawaii. They include primnoids, zoanthids, and Gerardia.
Medicines from the Sea
Jan 14 2011 - 12:08pm
You may not think of the ocean as a pharmacy but scientists are developing exciting new medicines from the sponges, corals, and other marine organisms found in the sea. Explore other videos that capture the beauty and mystery of the ocean realm at NOAA Ocean Today.
Nov 9 2012 - 4:44pm
One of the first signs of a sick coral reef is seaweed creeping across the corals, stealing their precious sunny real estate. Healthy corals, however, aren't completely hopeless: in some reefs, small fishes, such as this broad-barred goby (Gobiodon histrio), help eat the seaweeds away....
Jul 27 2011 - 11:15am
Inside the control van for the remotely operated vehicle Jason, Dr. Brendan Roark and colleagues watch the ROV collecting deep-sea coral specimens. This NOAA expedition took place in November 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of Florida. Learn more about deep-sea corals in the ...
Jun 7 2011 - 9:28am
Ocean scientists safely travel to deep-sea coral ecosystems up to 3,000 m (9,843 ft) below the ocean’s surface inside the Johnson-Sea-Link, a submersible owned and operated by the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution. Explore more in the multimedia feature "Coral Gardens of the Deep...
Jun 1 2010 - 7:50pm
When you are shopping for gifts and jewelry, steer clear of gifts that use real coral or other marine animal products. Deepwater pink and red corals in particular have been prized for their beauty in jewelry making, but they belong in the sea, not in our homes. Visit SeaWeb’s Too Precious to Wear...
Aug 2 2012 - 3:11pm
Branching corals, because of their more fragile structure, struggle to live in acidified waters that surround the volcanic CO2 seeps of Papua New Guinea. Read more about how reef scientist Laetitia Plaisance uses carbon dioxide seepsocean acidification and how it will affect biodiversity on coral...
Jun 7 2011 - 1:33pm
Discovered in 2004 and named in 2009, this Gersemia juliepackardae coral has been spotted and collected at several seamounts in the northeast Pacific Ocean at depths of 500-2,000 m (1,640-6,562 ft). Learn about more deep-sea discoveries in our Deep-sea Corals article.
Jan 2 2013 - 10:09am
This deep-sea black coral from Hawaii (Leiopathes sp.) is more than 4,200 years old.
Apr 20 2012 - 1:22pm
On April 20, 2010, an explosion on the oil-drilling rig Deepwater Horizon caused the largest marine oil spill in US history, gushing nearly 5 million barrels of crude oil over the course of three months. In the two years since, researchers have been hard at work studying the impacts of the spill....