New Coral Reef Image Databank

This image of the islands of Raiatea (lower) and Tahaa (upper) in the South Pacific is just one of the 1,490 pictures of coral reefs compiled for a new library to assist scientists in assessing changes to reefs and their environment.

The Landsat-7 image is from NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey, two of the partners in the Millennium Coral Reef Project that created the internet-based library.

The picture shows the shallow waters over the light colored reef as a turquoise band lining the islands.

The final maps from the worldwide coverage of images are due in 2005 from the SeaWiFS Project at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, but the raw data can be viewed here.

"Current estimates of the extent, health and even the location of the world's coral reefs are completely inadequate to answer the key question about the how reefs and the fragile ecosystems that they support are adapting to a changing environment," said Gene Carl Feldman the project manager for the online data development of the project, "This newly released data set will help provide the baseline against which future observations can be compared."

-- Sarah Davidson

Credit: NASA