Fragments of orange coral with white tentacles on small cement anchors in a tank.

Mesophotic coral can live at depths of 500 feet below the ocean surface. Even at this depth, some of the mesophotic corals in the Gulf of Mexico were affected by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010. Our coral scientists supporting NOAA’s National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science are studying the extent of this impact.

Three of our employee owners participated in a mission to extract the corals from the Gulf of Mexico that were then transported to laboratories in Galveston, Texas, Gainesville, Florida, and Charleston, South Carolina. Once the Charleston specimens were housed in custom-made tanks, our scientists began studying and caring for the corals. They feed the colony multiple times daily, and study their growth and reproduction. In an effort to restore the damaged coral colonies in the Gulf of Mexico, the team is studying how to maximize growth and outplanting at a larger scale.

See More CSS Insights

Custom Support to Space Florida

Our team recently reconfigured the office space and network for an incoming Space Life Science Lab tenant, Vaxxinity. This work included major renovations to the lab and office space, and new cable runs for their modified space. The team completed this large task within a four week period! Our Florida IT group works closely with…

Employees Receive Green Sustainability Award of Excellence

Congratulations to our team supporting the Center for Disease Control (CDC) for receiving the Green Sustainability Award of Excellence. Our team led the charge helping CDC to upgrade their spill cabinets across all campuses (Atlanta, GA; Fort Collins, CO; San Juan, PR), which now include a more sustainable material called Trivorex ®. This highly absorbent…

Assisting with a Risk and Vulnerability Assessment

L​os Angeles County in California is a densely populated area vulnerable to natural hazards such as flooding and wildfires. Our staff ​modified and applied the Integrated Vulnerability Assessment Framework developed by NOAA’s ​National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science to assess the county’s climate vulnerability. Through partner and stakeholder engagement, the team used a series of…