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With a mouse click , spectator anywhere can be enthral to the serene underwater world of the Great Barrier Reef .
Google Street View has partner with scientists to create 360 - degreepanoramas of the domain ’s coral Reef , called Google Street View Oceans . New ocean sites keep to be added to the labor , which was secrete in 2012 . The skill team hopes to develop a rigorous organization for supervise the precious coral ’s health while give the public a hazard to research these beautiful but vulnerable ecosystems .
A coral reef panorama from the Catlin Seaview Survey.
" Coral Rand are some of the most endangered ecosystem on the major planet , " say Ove Hoegh - Guldberg , a Witwatersrand scientist at the University of Queensland , Australia , who is leading the research in quislingism with the Catlin Seaview Survey . " I realise that if we formed a partnership , we could start to appear at those images and understand why coral reefs are fail downhill . " [ photo : Underwater Google Street View give away Stunning Corals ]
Using a human being - driven , submerged iceboat equipped with a set of advanced cameras , the team snap photos of the reefs and stitches them together into panoramas .
Next , the team utilise modern prototype - recognition computer software to monitor the red coral and other sea brute within these images . The same technology that allow computers to pick a font out of a photo of a crowd can be apply to coral and other Witwatersrand organisms , Hoegh - Guldberg told LiveScience . The squad will present its research at an external ecology meeting in London this week .
The team has already explored theGreat Barrier Reefand is presently review the Caribbean . " The Caribbean is in a very poor state , " Hoegh - Guldberg said , add together that coral cover in the part has declined from more than 50 percent in the 1970s to less than 5 percent now .
The cause of coral decline are complex . clime change is warming andacidifying the ocean , threatening the wellness of the organisms that support reef ecosystems . As carbon dioxide enters the oceans , it farm acid that dissolves the mineral coral expend to grow .
Coastal development presents other problems . disforestation give up more nutrients and sediment to run off into the sea , detrimental reefs . And overfishing is stripping the reefs of the fish that keep harmful algae growth in check .
" Fish are not just there for enjoyment and to be eaten,“Hoegh - Guldberg said . " They act as gardener . "
But most people probably do n’t know what ’s being lost : Less than 1 percent of humans have ever dived on a coral reef , Hoegh - Guldberg say .
With this new project , Witwatersrand domain that were once the state of the few are now accessible to anyone with an Internet connection . In fact , regular masses will be able to aid scientists in their efforts to supervise these ecosystems . For exemplar , a vernal student interest in turtle could count the turtles in the images .
Next year , Hoegh - Guldberg and his team plan to mapthe Coral Trianglein Southeast Asia , a major pith of biodiversity . " It ’s a very worthful part of the ocean , but it ’s also under extreme atmospheric pressure , " Hoegh - Guldberg tell .
