Coral reefs are important ecosystems. They have encountered a lot of hardships across their existence on Earth and are facing significant threats again today. Mike Hynes discovered that the past of coral reefs can tell us a lot about their own future.
WhoWhat Where
On Wednesday May 20th 2026 at 10 AM, Mike Hynes will defend his thesis, titled “Coral Reef Time Machine: Holocene reef geomorphology and paleoecology of the Spermonde Archipelago”, which will be live-streamed from the Agnietenkapel in Amsterdam. His research shows that, through paleoanalysis of the reefs of the past, we can understand how current reefs could react in response to the current rise of the sea level.
Goingall around the globe
After finishing his Bachelors in Geology in Canada, Mike took a gap year and went to Australia. It was there he discovered an interest in coral reef ecosystems.
“They have been around so long and they've seen so much. If we could get them to talk, they could tell us so much about what happened”.
Moving on to England to do his Masters, Mike decided that, for his next project, he would see if there would be way he could combine paleontology with the coral reefs that he recently discovered his love for, bringing him to Naturalis, the University of Amsterdam and the 4D-REEF program for his PhD.
Coralsand their trials
The Coral Triangle is an area on the threshold between the Indian and the Pacific oceans where the density and diversity of coral species is highest on Earth. It is therefore an important region that’s been highly researched. However, there’s still a gap in knowledge about the far past of these ecosystems today. Understanding this past is essential, as this area isn’t exempt from global environmental pressures. For example, changes in sea level directly influence the coral's growth rates. Through Mike’s research, he aimed to see how specific reefs from the shelf of the Spermonde Archipelago in Indonesia were growing over ~7 000 years.
These islands built by reefs represent important livelihoods, fishing grounds, a source of tourism/ecotourism and food for many locals. “We're talking literally millions of people who depend on these reefs". It is thus important to research these reefs and their past, for the future of both the ocean’s biodiversity and the people that depend on it.
The pastrevealed
“We took these aluminum tubes, six meters long, and hammered them into the reef, and because reefs grow more or less vertically, layer by layer, that allows us to capture that growth history”, he explains. Mike’s results show that the corals grew rapidly between ~7 000 and 6 000 years ago, a time when sea levels were also rising rapidly. This means that the growth of coral reefs is actually directly influenced by that phenomenon. “That was not necessarily a surprise to me, but of course it's always nice to have that verified” adds Mike.
Prudentpositivity
With the current rising sea levels, this news sounds hopeful for the future of these coral reefs. Still, Mike advocates cautious optimism: “There's definitely hope, but we don't want to stop trying to improve things, right?” says Mike.