The first piece of a series of concrete structures was lowered into the water off the coast of Miami Beach on Wednesday morning, a massive crane on the deck of a floating barge hoisting the unit into the air and sinking it to the seabed.
The first piece of a series of concrete structures was lowered into the water off the coast of Miami Beach on Wednesday morning, a massive crane on the deck of a floating barge hoisting the unit into the air and sinking it to the seabed.
During the next six hours, crewmembers aboard the barge would repeat that process until the structures, some stacked on top of each other, were settled on the seafloor, 14 feet below the surface.
To casual observers onshore, the daylong operation might have seemed routine. But this maritime activity was hardly run-of-the-mill.
In a project that could pave the way for greater efforts to protect coastlines from sea level rise and storm surge and serve as an innovative base structure to develop thriving coral reefs, a team of researchers and scientists from the University of Miami sunk 27 interlocking concrete structures that will form two hybrid reef units 1,000 feet offshore of North Beach Oceanside Park, at the northern edge of Miami Beach.
Read more at: University of Miami
One of the SEAHIVE units is lowered into the ocean off northern Miami Beach. (Photo Credit: Joshua Prezant/University of Miami)
