[Coral-List] Coral Surface Area-Responses
Tyler Smith
tsmith at uvi.edu
Mon Apr 7 17:58:00 EDT 2008
Fantabulous. Apparently people have lots of experience estimating
coral surface area
I'll summarize the advice below:
-(Thanks Ian Enochs and Johnathan Kool) If you just want your cap
defined from the middle of the ellipsoid, just use twice your height
to calculate your ellipsoidal SA and then divide the SA in two. It's
a very different story if you don't want to have your cap created
from the center of the ellipsoid and I would look at it here:
http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/51805.html
and
http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/52133.html (warning:
mentions calculus and integrals)
-(Thanks Judy Lang and Chris Jeffries) According to Fisher (2007, p.
53), the surface area of a massive hemisphere can approximated as 2
times pi times the square of r (radius), where r is estimated as the
average of all three dimensions, (i.e., LWH)/3).
Fisher, WS 2006. Stony Coral Rapid Bioassessment Protocol. EPA /600/
R-06/167
-(Thanks Joe Schittone)
Here's a formula I've used; not 100% accurate, but close. See: http://
sanctuaries.noaa.gov/science/conservation/elpis.html.
Used there for boulders, but will work (at least for head/mounding
corals).
2¹*(a+b)/4*h + ¹*a/2*b/2; where a, b, & h, are the lengths of the
major and minor axes and height, respectively
-(Thanks Remy Okazakai)
I use domes instead of ellipsoids for my surface area calculations,
so I don't know if I'll properly address your question.
However, this site has a dome calculator and equations (based on
architecture). Maybe you could calculate SA or V for a dome and
double it for your ellipsoid.
Calculator: http://static.monolithic.com/plan-design/calcs/index.html
Formulas: http://static.monolithic.com/construction/formulas.pdf
-(Thanks Mike Risk)
Rose and Risk, 1985. I don't have a pdf-Marine Biology. We used CAD/CAM
software, worked well, had the same data you have.
-(Thanks Albert Norstrm)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spheroid
Cheers,
Tyler
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tyler B. Smith, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Center for Marine and Environmental Studies
University of the Virgin Islands
2 John Brewers Bay
St. Thomas, USVI 00802
USA
office: 340-693-1394
fax: 340-693-1385
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