Precious pink coral in the family Coralliidae (left) and gold coral (Kulamanamana haumeae, right) observed during the transect. Image courtesy of the NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research, 2015 Hohonu Moana. Download larger version (jpg, 1.5 MB).
Leg 3 Dive 03: Kona Coast
Video highlights from the third dive of expedition Leg 3, which took place along a 450-meter contour at the southern end of the Kona Coast of the Big Island of Hawaiʻi with the objective of surveying a lava flow of a known age (1,868 million years) to see what coral community had grown in the years since the flow had formed. Video courtesy of the NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research, 2015 Hohonu Moana. Download (mp4, 67.6 MB)
Dive 03 of the expedition was conducted today along a 450-meter contour at the southern end of the Kona Coast of the Big Island of Hawaiʻi with the objective of surveying a lava flow of a known age (1,868 million years) to see what coral community had grown in the years since the flow had formed. The ROV conducted a 2,000-meter transect during the dive, occasionally zooming in on corals to verify their taxa or type, and using the ROV’s laser scale to estimate the size frequency of the coral colonies encountered on the transect. Colonies of Hemicorallium sp, Kulamanamana haumeaae, Antipatharians, and other coral were visually verified during the transect.
