Great Barrier Reef

Underwater loudspeakers could be used to revitalized devastated corals, by blasting the sounds of healthy reefs to make them more attractive to young fish. Earth’s ocean reefs are currently under major threat from human-led climate change.

Recent severe bleaching events to strike the Great Barrier Reef have led to widespread death of the corals making up world’s largest living structure, but scientists are coming up with increasingly inventive ways to repair the damage.

A huge raft of volcanic rock is floating towards Australia – and scientists say it'll help the ailing Great Barrier Reef.

A Queensland University of Technology (QUT) team has developed the "LarvalBot" underwater robot that, for the first time, has succeeded in reseeding damaged areas of Australia's Great Barrier Reef with heat tolerant baby coral polyps to help combat the effects of predators and climate change.

​​That Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is in serious trouble is no longer subject to debate, but the best way to deal with the problem very much is. The latest idea to emerge involves robots playing the role of "the stork" and distributing coral larvae across the Reef to promote new growth

​It's no secret that the world's coral reefs are in trouble, and unfortunately scuba divers can only do so much in the way of monitoring or protecting them. Scientists in Australia, however, have developed an autonomous underwater drone that could be of great help.

The ultimate fate of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is looking pretty dire. Now, researchers from the University of Queensland have outlined a plan to recycle dead coral into structures that can help protect the remaining reef and promote new growth.

As the fate of the Great Barrier Reef remains uncertain, a new study has examined the health of the reef over the last 30,000 years, and found that it has suffered five “death events” in the past – but its current woes could be the last straw.

We've recently seen a number of proposals for protecting coral reefs from the dangers of climate change, and now it turns out that corals already have a self-defense mechanism. They can release aerosols into the atmosphere to create a protective "cloud umbrella."

​Although the outlook may be bleak for the world's coral reefs overall, there might at least be hope for little bits of them. Scientists at the Great Barrier Reef Foundation have announced development of an eco-friendly film that could help protect corals against bleaching.

​Australia's Great Barrier Reef is in a bit of trouble. The Australian government has announced a AU$60 million plan to preserve the world's largest living structure, but environmental experts are wondering whether it is simply a way of avoiding a larger, more complex issue.

The Great Barrier Reef has seen better days, after a one-two punch of coral bleaching events struck it in 2016 and 2017. Warming sea temperatures has been pegged as the culprit, but researchers have found that a “perfect thermal storm” of oceanographic conditions led to the 2016 mass bleaching.