Back to the USVI

Back in April, Aran, Sam, and Max went to the US Virgin Islands National Park on the island of St John to study the sounds produced by the range of marine organisms that inhabit coral reefs. We deployed several instruments to record sound and the environmental conditions of the three study reefs - including temperature, salinity, and light data loggers. At that time, we also carried out visual surveys of the reefs to get a better sense of what lives there, and what may be producing the sounds we hear on our recorders.

A map of St John. Our study reefs are located in Lameshur Bay,
on the southern side of the island.

After a brief but enjoyable break from fieldwork, today marks the start of another field project. Over the next week we will retrieve the instruments from their four-month deployment and start to look at the data they collected. We will also do more visual surveys of the reef and the fish present at our different study sites. On this trip are two other WHOI/MIT Joint Program students, fish biologist Li Ling Hamady and coral biologist Tom DeCarlo. The three of us will be scuba diving several times over the next week to complete our study objectives.

Max