X-Ray Mag

Australia

Call for entries: Underwater Tour Awards 2021

1 month ago By Catherine GS Lim

Australia, 11 January 2021: Entries are now open for the Underwater Tour Awards 2021. We have added two new awards this year to include not just photographers, but also creatives and eco-citizens everywhere.

Guru Awards These awards feature five Categories, a publicly-voted People’s Choice prize, plus the ultimate prize for the top-scoring photographer across all the categories, the Grand Guru prize!

The crown-of-thorns starfish can sometimes be hard to spot using traditional survey methods.

New test to detect crown-of-thorns starfish

6 months ago By Annie Won

Outbreaks of crown-of-thorns starfish (CoTS) are bad news for coral reefs, so it is essential that they are detected and dealt with as soon as possible.

But detecting an outbreak in its early stages is not easy. What’s more, they sometimes hide under coral plates, while the younger ones can be as small as just a few millimetres.

To counter this, the researchers at the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) developed a new test to detect the presence of the starfish on coral reefs.

UNSW researcher Dr Catharina Vendl holding the telescopic pole she used to collect samples of whales' blow in Hervey Bay, Queensland, in 2017.

Migrating humpback whales have poor health on return journey

7 months ago By Annie Won

Every summer, East Australian humpback whales migrate from the feeding grounds in Antarctica to their breeding grounds in the Great Barrier Reef. They remain there for about several months, before making their way around the southern Australian coast back to Antarctica for the winter.

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Published 9 months ago
Last updated 9 months ago
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Mike Ball Announces Photo Competition Winner for 2019/20

Fri, 05/06/2020 - 04:42

It was a close competition and as always a difficult one to judge but Tanya’s image captured the essence typifying the experience encountered on our minke expeditions. 

https://www.mikeball.com/photo-gallery/photo-year-competition-2019-2020/

Mike Ball Dive Expeditions run expeditions to the Coral Sea and the far northern Great Barrier Reef between Cairns and the Cape York peninsula.

Currently running 5 Night Minke Whale Expeditions.

Photo Credit: Tanya Piejus
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Published 11 months ago
Last updated 4 months ago
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Australia International Dive Expo – Cancelled due to pandemic

Sun, 29/03/2020 - 15:20

“Our utmost priority is the health and safety of the people,” says Ness Puvanes, organiser of AIDE. “While this decision was not taken lightly, it is one of necessity that will safeguard our exhibitors, speakers, partners, visitors, team and the wider community.”

Researchers find deep-sea coral gardens off Western Australia

11 months ago By Main minion

Widely known as a biodiversity hotspot for marine animals, Australia’s Bremer Canyon Marine Park has been found to also host rich, diverse ecosystems within the canyon’s cold waters.

This discovery was made during a scientific expedition after researchers used a deep-sea remotely operated vehicle (ROV) to collect samples of deep-sea corals, associated fauna, seawater and geological samples from the abyssal depths to the continental shelf.

Acropora hyacinthus, thought to be a single species, is potentially five different species—some with a very limited geographical range.

New coral species discovered along the Great Barrier Reef

1 year ago By Main minion

Scientists from Queensland Museum (QM), University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia completed a 21-day trip from the Capricorn Bunkers off Gladstone to Thursday Island in the Torres Strait late last year. Scientists discovered dozens of new coral species on a recent voyage along the length of the Great Barrier Reef.

“On almost every dive we were finding species that aren’t in the books"

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