We have been able to stabilize our online SEAKEYS database using GemStone (our commercial database), Smalltalk, Java servlet and Common Object Request Broker (CORBA) technologies. We now have programmer Clarke Jeffris of AOML working most of his time on updating and developing the database. Currently he is working on modules to display graphical representations of our data, and then will begin working on providing access to new parameters (fluorometry and transmissometry). Until then, the usual data are updated to the database every morning around 9:00am. Clarke has recently received specialized training on GemStone at New York and Beaverton, Oregon to upgrade his skills at building the system.

The Coral Reef Early Warning System (CREWS) is the name of the coral bleaching expert system that now uses the SEAKEYS data. A paper was submitted to the Bulletin of Marine Science describing how the system was utilized during a coral bleaching episode last year at Sombrero Key. The coral reef bleaching bulletins are posted if conditions thought to be conducive to coral bleaching occur at the reef. CREWS has now been expanded to monitor coral bleaching conditions at Fowey Rocks, Molasses Reef, Sombrero Reef, Sand Key and Dry Tortugas. This basic expert system will be expanded in the future to monitor other matching environmental parameters.