Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Wednesday 26th September 2012: Millions of people around the globe are invited, for the first time in history, to take a virtual dive on the Great Barrier Reef from wherever they are and experience the first groundbreaking scientific expedition of the Catlin Seaview Survey.
This unique underwater experience will capture the eyes of the world through a global partnership established by the Catlin Seaview Survey and Google.
The Catlin Seaview Survey, a series of scientific expeditions to explore and survey the world’s coral reefs, can be followed on www.catlinseaviewsurvey.com and content collected on expedition is now available in the Street View feature of Google Maps.
Using specially designed, cutting-edge technology and the world’s first tablet-operated underwater camera, the SVII camera will bring the experience to life by taking up to 50,000 images that will be collected through continuous high-resolution, 360-degree panoramic imagery. When stitched together, these images will allow people to choose a location along the Great Barrier Reef, dip underwater and go for a viewer-controlled virtual dive in Google Maps.
The Catlin Seaview Survey is sponsored by Catlin Group Limited, an international specialty property/casualty insurer and reinsurer.
As the project’s chief scientist, Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg from the Global Change Institute at The University of Queensland said all the scientific data gathered would be made public in a Global Reef Record database.
“The Global Reef Record is a game-changing scientific tool that scientists around the world will have at their fingertips. They will be able to monitor change in marine environments now and in the future. Marine scientists researching any aspect of the reef will be able to study these environments from any of the surveys we conduct – Shallow Reef or Deep Reef,” Professor Hoegh-Guldberg said.
“It’s incredibly rewarding and exciting to be leading a talented team of scientists as the first Catlin Seaview Survey expedition begins. The possibilities of what we will discover about coral reefs are almost endless. And right now, information on how these endangered ecosystems are responding to climate change is incredibly important, given that almost 25 percent of marine species live in and around coral reefs,” Professor Hoegh-Guldberg concluded.
“We are partnering with the Catlin Seaview Survey to make this amazing imagery available to more than one billion monthly users of Google Maps across the world. Together we want to make these special underwater locations as accessible to people as the roads and landmarks they explore in Google Maps each day,” Jenifer Austin Foulkes, Manager, Google’s Oceans Program.
This special collection of underwater imagery highlights areas in the Great Barrier Reef and several other underwater spots in the Philippines and Hawaii. Please visit Google’s Street View Gallery to explore these unique reef locations: Heron Island – Great Barrier Reef, Lady Elliot Island – Great Barrier Reef, Wilson Island – Great Barrier Reef, Molokini Crater – Maui, Hawaii, Hanauma Bay – Oahu, Hawaii and Apo Island – Philippines.
To demonstrate just how unique this experience will be, the audience at the Blue Ocean Film Festival in Monterey, California, and audiences online globally, will be treated to the first Catlin Seaview Survey live night dive via a Google+ Hangout on September.
To view the Google+ Hangout on air please visit: plus.google.com/+catlinseaviewsurvey or youtube.com/catlinseaviewsurvey
About Global Change Institute
The Global Change Institute at The University of Queensland, Australia, in collaboration with private and public sector partners, is an independent source of high-impact, game-changing science. The Global Change Institute seeks to advance scientific discovery and identify solutions for meeting the challenges presented by climate change, population change and technological innovation. The Global Change Institute is the science partner in the Catlin Seaview Survey.
About Catlin
Catlin Group Limited is a global specialty property/casualty insurer and reinsurer, writing more than 30 classes of business. Catlin operates worldwide through six underwriting hubs: London/UK, Bermuda, the United States, Asia Pacific, Europe, and Canada. The Catlin Seaview Survey is the fourth scientific expedition it has sponsored following three Catlin Arctic Surveys investigating environmental changes in the Arctic (2009-2011). Catlin believes that insurers
must take a leading role in improving our understanding of potential changes to our environment, changes that could affect how risks are managed in the future. Catlin’s contribution is to sponsor independent, impartial research that is freely distributed to the world’s scientific community.
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