Reefs Unknown

24/04/2025

Read more about the coral reef photogrammetry workshop we supported in the British Virgin Islands in January 👀

The H. Lavity Stoutt Community College’s (HLSCC) Centre for Applied Marine Studies (CAMS) recently completed an exciting new project aimed at bolstering the Territory’s capacity to monitor and research coral reefs using advanced imaging technology. Funded by the UK Darwin Plus Initiative, the pr...

22/04/2025

Happy Earth Day!
We're remembering when we had the privilege to support this workshop with our partners in the British Virgin Islands earlier this year. It was fun and educational, and we hope to partner again someday soon!

27/11/2024

This Thanksgiving, we are grateful for you, our followers. Thanks for all of your interest and support of our work to put mesophotic reefs on the map.
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Pictured: Sarah and Viktor on a boat while on expedition in Panama.

22/11/2024

Happy National Science Diving Day!! 🥳🤿
At Reefs Unknown, we love diving for science, and are proud to be an organizational member of the American Academy of Underwater Sciences (AAUS). They make it super easy to collaborate with other organizations to get dive fieldwork done. Thanks .scientific.diving !
.megccr

07/11/2024

Coming soon… 👀

25/10/2024

What do you see in this photo?
There's a lot going on here. Coral reefs are full of life in every square inch.

Maybe you first saw the crown-of-thorns starfish (COTS) in the left half of the frame. They are beautiful, but their spines are poisonous, causing a painful sting when touched. They are also voracious coral predators. In some areas they can have outbreaks where tons of them appear, seemingly out of nowhere. These large groups eat so much coral that it threatens reef health and they must be euthanized to control their effects.

This brings us to another part of the photo you may have noticed: the large greenish-white patch in the middle. This is dead coral, presumably eaten by this COTS. It's green because algae has started growing, making it difficult for the coral to grow back. You can see the live part of the coral that was spared, the brown patch in the middle-right part of the photo.

There's also sponges (the orange patches), encrusting algae (the purple patches), and more!

Did you learn something about coral reef ecology? Comment below!

Uva Reef, Pacific Panama. Photo by Viktor Brandtneris

25/03/2024

Viktor just spent a week assessing reefs and making new connections in the British Virgin Islands. Thanks to the National Parks Trust for the invitation to participate! Thanks also to who rushed a full set of dive gear to us in time to make the ferry. 👏
📸 1: Dan Holstein, LSU
📸 2: Viktor Brandtneris, Reefs Unknown
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A description of the project from :
Continuing with our focus on the marine environment, the team from Louisiana State University Seascape Ecology Lab are joined by Viktor Brandtneris from the US Virgin Islands’ (USVI) organisation Reefs Unknown. Reefs Unknown use their experience, relationships, and tools built for mesophotic work in the USVI to provide a research platform for deep reefs researchers across the eastern Caribbean and world.
Viktor has a master’s from the University of the Virgin Islands, is a technical diving and rebreather instructor, and is interested in new and creative ways to improve access to the underwater world.

Together the two teams will monitor coral reefs within the BVI that were treated for stony coral tissue loss disease between 2021 and 2022, with funding provided by the UK’s Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC).

25/03/2024

Viktor just spent a week assessing reefs and making new connections in the British Virgin Islands. Thanks to the National Parks Trust for the invitation to participate!

22/11/2023

🚨BIG NEWS!! 🚨
In honor of National Scientific Diving Day, we are proud to announce that Reefs Unknown officially has a dive program! We are now an organizational member of the American Academy of Underwater Sciences, which means we can safely do science underwater and work with other AAUS groups. Many thanks to everyone at .scientific.diving who reviewed our manual and trained Viktor as a dive safety officer. . .
Pictured is our dive control board at DEMA (L to R): Sarah Heidmann (Reefs Unknown), Viktor Brandtneris (Reefs Unknown DSO), and Alex Chequer (Central Caribbean Marine Institute). . .
DM us if you want to collaborate in the VI and beyond!

20/11/2023

Successful week at reconnecting with friends and colleagues, and checking out the cutting edge in dive technology. Reefs Unknown dive locker coming soon!

03/11/2023

What does it mean for a coral reef to be resilient?
Reefs Unknown is helping to answer that question over the next 2 days as we participate in the Virgin Islands Reef Resilience Study Workshop. Led by Dr. Tyler Smith and sponsored by , this workshop brings together local experts from academia, nonprofits, and government to determine drivers of resilience and prioritize research and management actions.
🇻🇮 .vi

07/07/2023

🥁 🥁 🥁
Ta-da!
Reefs Unknown’s very first public photo.
This is the endangered Nassau grouper, Epinephelus striatus, which we saw on Reefs Unknown’s first dive. It was digitally captured by the talented .
This species is locally important in the Virgin Islands and was historically heavily fished until management was implemented. Over the last several years we have seen some recovery of the species locally, and hope their numbers continue the upward trend.
The Virgin Islands are one of the only places in the Caribbean you can still see this fish! They are very friendly and beautiful.
📸: Viktor Brandtneris / Reefs Unknown