Technological Development

As part of NURP (NOAA's Undersea Research Program), the Caribbean Marine Research Center supports projects that encourage the development and use of new technologies in our effort to better understand and protect our oceans.

In the last several years, we've supported the development and application of remote sensing technologies to map coral reefs and other essential fish habitats such as seagrasses. We also use technical and deep diving techniques to study deep reefs and unique marine cave environments of the Bahamas. On these dives, we've catalogued several new species of marine life, and we've pursued the discovery of useful chemicals and pharmaceutical products in the marine organisms that inhabit these environments. In addition, we're in the process of developing technology that evaluates corals in real-time, as they respond to environmental stressors.

We also support, in part, the world's first Coral Reef Early Warning System (CREWS) buoy. This buoy was deployed near our tropical marine laboratory on Lee Stocking Island and provides a variety of real-time data. The CREWS buoy includes the first-ever monitoring, pulse-amplitude modulating (PAM) fluorometer. This ground-breaking device sends data via the Web to coral reef scientists around the world and helps them predict coral bleaching events. You can view this data right now simply by clicking www.coral.noaa.gov/crw/real_data.shtml.

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