The war in Ukraine remains prominent in the news, but climate change continues to be another issue of concern. Today activists from Fridays for the Future organized worldwide protests asking governments to act against global warming and calling for the end of the war in Ukraine.
This week there were actually some worrying news: Australia's Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA) confirmed that there has been a sixth mass coral bleaching event. Aerial surveys by the Australian Institute of Marine Science (Aims) and GBRMPA along the 2,300km length of the marine park covering about 750 individual reefs, confirmed the event. The survey found there was bleaching in all the four management areas of the park; the most extreme bleaching was closer to the shore.
Coral bleaching occurs when ocean temperatures over the reef hit a record high. Corals get stressed from high water temperatures, and expel the algae living inside them and providing the corals with food and colour. The corals' distress is proved by the fact that they turn white or that they pour out a fluorescent pigment.
Widespread mass bleaching of corals on the reef was first recorded in 1998, but then occurred also in 2002, 2016, 2017, 2020 and now. The recent bleaching is atypical as it is unusual for corals to bleach during a La Niña year (a weather pattern that brings cooler conditions in the Pacific).
As climate changes, the temperature of the reef is also changing, and, at the moment, it is about 1.5 degrees centigrade warmer than it was 150 years ago. Alarmed by the situation, scientists are calling for urgent action to cut greenhouse gas emissions globally that drive the repeated mass bleaching.
The art and design community can help scientists and conservationists raising awareness, as proved by "Corallum Fabrica".
The open-science project is an archive of the 3D structure of coral skeletons that hopes to preserve these specimens digitally for future generations.
The multidisciplinary team behind this project – comprising professionals from the fields of technology, design, and marine biology – wanted to show what the corals were made of, so they decided to apply 3D technologies to coral skeletons.
The team used x-ray micro-tomography to study the structures of the corals and then elaborated high resolution 3D models of the coral samples. The 3D scanning technology allowed the researchers to render 3D inner cavities, porosities and micro-structures of coral's skeleton in high resolution. In this way we can all look at the internal and external architectures of the corals.
So far the project features 40 coral skeletons specimens, most of which come from the collections of the zoological library of dry specimens of the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle (National Museum of Natural History) in Paris, while others come from the personal collections of researchers and constitute natural objects under study.
The Corallum Fabrica project also offers historical descriptions, sources, and metadata about the corals and can be enjoyed on the Oculus Quest 2 (you can get it on Sidequest). The models are available in creative common license free to use and share and scientists around the world can share new descriptions and stories about specific species of coral.
The implications of the projects are both cultural and scientific: researchers hope to preserve the common cultural heritage that is embedded in the corals' skeleton but also to offer a new perspective towards displaying archives and scientific data.
While Corallum Fabrica could be seen as an educational art installation as well, while 3D-printed sculptures can be used in museums to raise public awareness and question our relationship with those animals.
The project could prove inspiring also for fashion designers (X-ray of corals would be cool as prints, but you could easily create in a variety of materials – what about recycled glass? – a jewelry collection inspired by the structure of the corals), since we should all protect corals and turn into mediators of coral reef's memory.