Cold-Water Coral Reefs of the World

Dr. Erik E. Cordes is a Professor and Vice Chair of the Department of Biology at Temple University, and led the Cold-Water Coral chapters of the First and Second U.N. World Ocean Assessments. He has discovered and described new deep-sea coral habitats in temperate and tropical systems in the Atlantic and Pacific on over 30 research expeditions with manned and unmanned submersibles.

Dr. Furu Mienis is a scientist at the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research in the department of ocean systems. She has participated in over 30 research cruises, the majority of which were carried out to study cold-water coral reefs in the Atlantic. She mainly studies the environmental conditions and dynamics that influence the functioning of these vulnerable ecosystems in the deep sea.