A recent expedition by members of the Explorers Club will change the way coral reefs will be mapped throughout the world.

From an article by Joseph Frey in the Columbia Star (Columbia, South Carolina):

A recent expedition by members of the Explorers Club will change the way coral reefs will be mapped throughout the world.

It was serendipitous that the explorers were in the Bahamas where Christopher Columbus first discovered the Americas.

This event sparked Europe's exploration of our planet and initiated an era of modern cartography.

The expedition, entitled the "2008 International Coral Reef initiative: First Ever Precise Digital Coral Reef Mapping In The Bahamas and Wider Caribbean," will produce a unique, highly accurate biodiversity map of a coral reef, the first of its kind for the Caribbean region and possibly the first in the world.

The team worked around Tropical Storm Fay and raced to beat the storm cell over the mid- Atlantic Ocean that would develop into Hurricane Gustav. The August heat was intense as the team worked frantically gathering the vital pieces of information needed to complete the data- intensive map.

When completed in late October, the map will have integrated satellite and aerial photography with Global Positioning Systems (GPS) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technologies along with ground- truthing, which consists of collecting scientific data above and below the ocean's surface. These technologies have been used by civil engineers and land surveyors, but its use in conservation biology is new and very recent.