Gallery: Swim Through the Oceans at Your Desk With Google's 360-Degree Seaview
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In 2013 the SVII camera surveyed the global epicenter of coral reefs, the Coral Triangle in the western Pacific Ocean, where the waters are the most bio-diverse on earth.
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Philippe Cousteau (grandson of the famous underwater explorer Jaques-Yves Cousteau), who had joined the team to film a documentary, uses the Survey's support scooter near Wilson Island on the Great Barrier Reef. The huge Porites coral on the right is estimated to be over 500 years old.
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Underwater structures, whether natural or man-made, provide a place for corals to grow. This is the wreck of the Antilla, which was sunk in 1940 near Aruba. It now provides habitat for many fish and an anchor point for the soft corals that call the Caribbean home.
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A school of trevally swim over a carpet of healthy hard coral on Lady Elliot Island, at the southern edge of the Great Barrier Reef.
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According to scientists, over the last 50 years 40 percent of the world's coral reefs have disappeared. In 2013 the team surveyed 13 countries in the Caribbean region, which has experienced greater than average coral loss over this period, as demonstrated by this wasteland captured off the coast of Bonaire.
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See if you can spot the three green turtles in this image, made during a pilot survey of Heron Island (at the southern edge of the Great Barrier Reef).
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The Coral Sea is a wild and remote region situated northeast of Australia (beyond the Great Barrier Reef).
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Dr. Manuel Gonzalez-Rivero, who led the primary scientific team in 2013, pilots the SVII unit through Glover's Reef in Belize.
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Each season, these huge manta rays feed on the plankton-filled waters that surround Lady Elliot Island, at the southern edge of the Great Barrier Reef.
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In 2013 the Survey was invited to help the Charles Darwin Foundation explore the Galapagos Islands, where they encountered these Galapagos sea lions.
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Occasionally the Survey collaborates with others, including deep reef specialists (who study reefs between depths of 30 meters to 120 meters), pictured here testing the deep-diving Substation Curacao in the Caribbean.
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Wilson Reef, located in the remote far north of the Great Barrier Reef, is home to a relatively healthy coral ecosystem.
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An eagle ray swims over the soft corals of Long Caye in Belize.
