‘Bright white skeletons’: some Western Australian reefs have the lowest coral cover on record
- Written by James Paton Gilmour, Research Scientist: Coral Ecology, Australian Institute of Marine Science

Diving on the remote coral reefs in the north of Western Australia during the world’s worst bleaching event in 2016, the first thing I noticed was the heat. It was like diving into a warm bath, with surface temperatures of 34⁰C.
Then I...