The Galápagos Islands are home to a dazzling array of cold-water corals. While they are understudied compared to the shallow-water corals, a subset of these deep-dwelling animals is even more shrouded in mystery—cold-water corals living on cliffs. The depth and inaccessibility of vertical corals to ship-based sensors present significant hurdles to studying these creatures. Chief Scientist Katleen Robert and her multidisciplinary team will overcome these challenges to map and characterize this extraordinary ecosystem while defining its environmental drivers.
The team will deploy a number of advanced technologies, including a laser scanner that will create an ultra-high resolution three-dimensional reconstruction of vertical cold-water coral reefs. As the Galápagos Islands are a protected area with little human impact, its cliff-dwelling coral reefs likely represent these ecosystems in their pristine condition and can serve as a baseline for understanding change.
