Great Barrier Reef

Summary

The Great Barrier Reef is the world's largest coral reef system, composed of over 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands stretching for over over an area of approximately . The reef is located in the Coral Sea, off the coast of Queensland, Australia, separated from the coast by a channel wide in places and over deep. The Great Barrier Reef can be seen from outer space and is the world's biggest single structure made by living organisms. This reef structure is composed of and built by billions of tiny organisms, known as coral polyps. It supports a wide diversity of life and was selected as a World Heritage Site in 1981. CNN labelled it one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World in 1997. Australian World Heritage places included it in its list in 2007. The Queensland National Trust named it a state icon of Queensland in 2006. A large part of the reef is protected by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, which helps to limit the impact of huma

Official source

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Barrier_Reef

About this result

This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.

Related publications (16)

Related publications

Related people

Related units

Related concepts (27)

Related concepts

Related courses (1)

Related courses

Related lectures (3)

Related lectures

Comparative bioaccumulation of trace elements between Nautilus pompilius and Nautilus macromphalus (Cephalopoda: Nautiloidea) from Vanuatu and New Caledonia

Julien Boucher

The concentrations of 16 trace elements were investigated and compared for the first time in the digestive and excreting tissues of two Nautilus species (Cephalopoda: Nautiloidea) from two geologically contrasted areas: (1) N. macromphalus from New Caledonia, a region characterized by its richness in nickel ores and its lack of tectonic activities and (2) N. pompilius from the Vanuatu archipelago showing high volcanic and tectonic activities. In both Nautilus species, results clearly highlighted that the digestive gland played a key role in the bioaccumulation and storage of Ag, Cd, Ce, Co, Cu, Fe, La, Nd, V, and Zn whereas As, Cr, Mn, Ni, Pb, and Se were accumulated in a greater extent in the excreting tissues (i.e. pericardial and renal appendages). Despite contrasting environments, no significant difference (p

2009

Flexible ring net barriers have become increasingly popular in practical mitigation of debris flow worldwide. Systematic assessments of their response and performance subjected to the impact of realistic debris flows remain challenging. This study presents a novel computational approach based on coupled CFD-DEM to model the impact of debris flow on a flexible ring net barrier in a unified framework. The debris flow is treated as a solid-fluid mixture, where the solid phase and the fluid phase are modeled by DEM and CFD, respectively. The barrier is simulated as a system of different deformable components, including rings, cables and energy dissipators, and is modeled with DEM. The proposed method expedites a convenient, unified consideration of multi-way interactions among the debris solid, the debris fluid, and the barrier. The simulation of a flexible barrier is calibrated against existing experimental data and past numerical results, by examining the quasi-static responses of different barrier components and the dynamic reactions of the entire barrier. The barrier system is further subjected to the impact of debris flows with different Froude numbers to examine its performance, in terms of its retaining capacity of debris mass and peak sustained forces in the barrier. Two energy-related indices, energy dissipation ratio and energy absorption ratio, are estimated for design reference. The study provides a novel, physically based predictive computational tool for future design and analysis of flexible ring net barriers in debris flow mitigation.

2020

Intestinal Fish Cell Barrier Model to Assess Transfer of Organic Chemicals in Vitro: An Experimental and Computational Study

Jenny Maner, Kristin Schirmer, Hannah Inka Schug, Anze Zupanic

We studied the role of the fish intestine as a barrier for organic chemicals using the epithelial barrier model built on the rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) intestinal cell line, RTgutGC and the newly developed exposure chamber, TransFEr, specifically designed to work with hydrophobic and volatile chemicals. Testing 11 chemicals with a range of physicochemical properties (logK(ow): 2.2 to 6.3, logHLC: 6.1 to 2.3) and combining the data with a mechanistic kinetic model enabled the determination of dominant processes underlying the transfer experiments and the derivation of robust transfer rates. Against the current assumption in chemical uptake modeling, chemical transfer did not strictly depend on the logK(ow) but resulted from chemical-specific intracellular accumulation and biotransformation combined with paracellular and active transport. Modeling also identified that conducting elaborate measurements of the plastic parts, including the polystyrene insert and the PET filter, is unnecessary and that stirring in the TransFEr chamber reduced the stagnant water layers compared to theoretical predictions. Aside from providing insights into chemical uptake via the intestinal epithelium, this system can easily be transferred to other cell-based barrier systems, such as the fish gill or mammalian intestinal models and may improve in vitro-in vivo extrapolation and prediction of chemical bioaccumulation into organisms.

AMER CHEMICAL SOC2019