ProfessorJody Webster

New research led by the University of Sydneyadds to our understanding of how rapidly rising sea levels due to climate change foreshadow the end of the Great Barrier Reef as we know it. The findings suggest the reef can withstand rising sea levels in isolation but is vulnerable to associated environmental stressors arising from global climate change. Led byProfessor Jody Webster from theSchool of Geosciences, the research was published today in Nature Communications. It draws from a geological time capsule of fossil reef cores, extracted from the seabed under the Great Barrier Reef. Webster and colleagues also published a companion article in�The Conversation

A new study, conducted at the University of Sydney research station at One Tree Island, shows that coral reef growth wasn't halted but just went deeper, slower. The research was conducted at theUniversity of Sydney research station at One Tree Island in collaboration with the University of Queensland, Southern Cross University and the University of Tokyo. Using a jack-up drill rig, geoscientists drilled into the reef, extracting cores from 12 sites. The extracted cores provided fossilised records of corals for examination and geochemical analysis (paleowater quality reconstructions) . Check out the interestingpress release some highlights of this amazing research voyage.

Check out the interestingpress release some of the details of IODP Exp. 389.

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Halimeda bioherms are one of the poorest understood parts of the reef. In this multidisciplinary study of the area, under a fact-finding project namedHALO a team of Australian and international scientists set out aboard the CSIRO research vesselRVInvestigator understand how these sometimes near-perfect rings formed over the past 12,000 years of the Holocene, their importance as reef habitats and their role in cycling chemicals. Check out the interesting press release covering some highlights of this amazing research voyage.

The Conversation: Volume Article number 154266

Nice outreach video covering the objectives of our Ice Age Geology of the Great Barrier Reef Schmidt Ocean Institute (SOI) voyage (FK201122) to the southern GBR.

This paper been getting some nice media coverage andbuilds directly on theNature Geoscience we published recently on theIODP Exp. 325 Barrier Reef Environmental Changes) and provides important new insights into the role that microbialites played in the growth and development of the Great Barrier reef over the past 30,000 years.

Check this nice coverage by the ABC of our recently completedSchmidt Ocean Institute (SOI) investigating the reefs out in theCoral Sea The Schmidt Ocean Institute works to advance the frontiers of global marine research by providing state of the art operational, technological, and informational support to the pioneering ocean science and technology development projects at sea. Scientists are able to bid for ship (RV Falkor and ROV (SuBastian time through a competitive proposal process and the GRG, with colleagues from around Australia, is involved in several cruises in the region in 2020.

PhD student Kelsey Sanborn shown how the reef has dealt with environmental stresses in the recent past in order to understand how it might react to climate change in the future.�We wanted to understand past reef resilience to multiple environmental stresses during the formation of the modern reef,� said lead authorKelsey Sanborn

Check out this TV spot we did for the ABC National news Nov 24th. Some beautiful imagery of One Tree Reef where the GRG is doing alot of interesting coral reef geology, physical process measurements and numerical modeling.

Could reimagining 500,000 years of evolution uncover how to conserve one of the world's greatest natural wonders � the Great Barrier Reef? An interesting article as part of USYD branding campaign�Unlearning the reef to predicts its future� promote the GRG's work on coral reef systems.

Check out this TV spot I did for the BBC World News about the publication of our recent sea level research published in Nature.

See the link for a summary of the wide media exposure our recent paper inNature Geoscience The paper was also names in the top 10 (#4)science discoveries USYD in 2018.

Untangling the role of climate on sediment and reef evolution over millennial timescales

Check out this new article by the website CNET GRG Collaborator Rob Beaman and I make an appearance talking about using multibeam sonar to map the GBR sea bed. This part of a larger series of articles focused coral reefs and climate change.

An interesting program hosted by Prof. Emma Johnston that aired on 3rd Oct 2017. Our segment on the evolution of the GBR through time in response to natural climate change appears about 36 mins into the program [wpvideo zq338nlM]

Some nice media coverage of GRG PhD student Kelsey Sanborn's new paper providingevidence of a meltwater pulse (referred to as meltwater pulse 1-A), based on analysis of fossil coral reef samples from off the coast of Kawaihae, on the northwest of the Big Island of Hawaii.

Also check out the interview our GRG collaborator Rob Beaman did with Fran Kelly on the ABC Radio National Breakfast Program.

The segment was also aired on the ABC National News on 15th Jan 2017.