ANDROS, Bahamas, Aug. 30 — We head out early into the sparkling waters of the Bermuda Triangle, before the sun gets too intense.

Project leader Dan Brumbaugh has extensive scouting to do in the 25-square-mile survey zone. Josh Drew, a research intern at the American Museum of Natural History, carries a Global Positioning System satellite locator in a waterproof bag as well as laminated aerial maps of various Andros reef areas.

Today, Josh calls out GPS points. When the numbers indicate we've entered an unidentified habitat area, Dan determines what kind it is by looking through a glass-bottomed bucket. Over and over, Josh calls the location and Dan calls the habitat, slowly filling in the aerial photo with knowledge.

We proceed painstakingly across the wide reef crest, normally a forbidden zone for boaters. Countless captains unfamiliar with Bahamian waters have crashed into this peak of the reef, most of which is hidden at high tide. In fact, Archie Forfar wrecked his yacht on the uncharted Andros reef crest on Christmas Eve, 1959 — before he built his dive resort that now serves as the field station. He instantly fell in love with the place and never left.

Dan stands on the front of the boat, directing the driver around mounds of elkhorn coral that tower from atop pillars of calcified limestone, just a few feet below the surface. Elkhorn coral thrives in the turbulent waters of the reef crest, where other corals can't survive. Most corals have a self-cleaning system that washes away sediment that settles on their surfaces. But elkhorn lacks such a system and requires sediment-free water. Through the glassy sea, it's clear that much of the elkhorn coral is dead or dying.

After lunch, we snorkel over the crest, free-diving down to join tropical fish darting in and out of the coral heads. I spot what looks like a black-and-white Nassau grouper hanging out near the bottom, although groupers are usually in deeper water.

Hermaphroditic parrotfish — in the male phase they are green, yellow and blue and in the female phase, black-and-white checked —bite off chunks of coral. They digest the polyps that live on the coral, then pass the ground coral as waste, essentially manufacturing the sandy bottom.

Plant-grazing blue tang and tiny fairy basslets peck and hunt their way around the coral. I glance up toward the surface periodically to check for barracuda and sharks. Happily, I see none.

Dan calls us over to look at what appears to be newly bleached coral. Suspended above the reef crest, I can see dead elkhorn coral in every direction — some taller than 4 feet and thicker than my arm — piled haphazardly on the seabed. It looks like a marine junkyard, filled with the calcified skeletons of once glorious creatures.

"It's depressing down there," I say, climbing back on the boat. "It looks like it's dead."

"This area of the reef seems to be," Dan says.

He speculates that a disease could have attacked the coral at some point. But there's nothing simple about determining the cause of a large die-off of a reef organism. Is it a natural progression in an ancient cycle of death and renewal? Will the reef bring itself back into balance? Are humans a contributing factor? The only factor?

Certainly, local fishermen have impacted the reef over the years, using drastic methods such as coating squares of carpet with bleach and laying them directly on the coral in order to drive out lobster and other valuable animals, according to Bill Davis, Forfar director.

But, he says, the locals slowly "seem to be learning how important it is to keep the reef healthy."

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