[Coral-List] New practical underwater coral identification tool for the Indo Pacific.

[Russell Kelley]

Announcement: The Indo Pacific Coral Finder: a new practical underwater coral identification tool that links to Corals of the World

The Coral Identification Capacity Building Program is pleased to announce the publication of the Indo Pacific Coral Finder by Russell Kelley. The Coral Finder is a proven, practical, underwater coral identification tool that allows anyone to identify hard corals to genus, regardless of growth form, anywhere in the Indian and Pacific Oceans.  

The Coral Finder is available from BYOGUIDES - www.byoguides.com

Anyone who has tried knows how challenging coral identification can be because of the sheer number of species and variation in form with environment shown by corals. The Coral Finder solves this problem with a unique visual approach to coral identification that lets the user find the name of the coral they are looking at in less than a minute. The Coral Finder not only makes coral identification practical it also provides the user with a volume and page number cross reference back into Charlie Veron's Corals of the World  for after dive follow up and learning.  

The Coral Finder was designed to provide a friendly, practical way to teach yourself coral identification - it gives instant results and rewards for the motivated learner. By only presenting relevant options in a simple visual choice matrix the user is freed from the limitations of text based learning allowing the eye and brain to make powerful visual decisions. The Coral Finder is ideal for monitoring, surveys, students, scientists, dive masters, underwater naturalists, aquarists and CITES / coral industry professionals.

The Coral Finder is made from a robust waterproof plastic and was designed and tested (over two years) to cope with the rough and tumble of diving, requiring no more than a wash and dry along with your dive gear at the end of the trip. 

The Coral Finder will be supported by a website of free learning resources including video training movies from beginner to advanced - due for completion later in 2010.  

The development of the Coral Finder was supported by the Australian Coral Reef Society and Professor Charlie Veron (Author of Corals Of The World).   


For more information about how the Coral Finder works please check out:

http://www.byoguides.com/coralfinder/how-it-works/

or just watch the 10 minute video of it in action at...

http://www.byoguides.com/coralfinder/in-action/

For the post-MTV generation who can't afford 10 whole minutes there is a 60 second video here:

http://www.byoguides.com/coralfinder/

Does it work? Results from recent training workshops based on the Coral Finder demonstrate powerful, instantaneous increases in coral ID capacity because of the way the Coral Finder empowers the eye and brain to make taxonomic decisions free from text:

http://www.byoguides.com/coralfinder/results-of-testing/

A video describing more technique, tips and tricks can be found here:
http://www.byoguides.com/coralfinder/tips-tricks-and-accessories/


Happy Coralling,

Russell Kelley 

Russell Kelley
russellkelley at mac.com

Program Director
Coral Identification Capacity Building Program.
P.O. Box 1859, Townsville, 4810, AUSTRALIA
ABN 66208215206
Int. + 61 (0) 7  47804380 ph.

Int. + (0) 419 716730 mob.

GMT + 10 hours

Skype: wireruss