The SVII camera is suitably squidlike. It moves at a leisurely two and a half miles an hour through living corridors and rusted shipwrecks of the Coral Sea off Australia, snapping 360-degree photos every four to six seconds.

This camera, at the nexus of a four-way partnership called the Catlin Seaview Survey, will visually document the composition and the health of the Great Barrier Reef along its full 1,500-mile span.

Sponsored by the Catlin Group, the global insurance company, the survey is intended not only to gather data but also to strengthen scientific understanding of how climate change might affect ocean ecosystems like the Great Barrier Reef. The mapping is to begin in September.

Researchers hope that the stunning visuals will ?bridge the gap between scientific knowledge and public awareness,? Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, director of the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland and the project?s chief scientist, said in a media release.

Scientists are anxiously awaiting the effects – almost assuredly adverse – of climate change on temperature-sensitive corals, the tiny animals at the heart of the reefs. Increasing ocean acidity from abundant atmospheric carbon dioxide is expected to compound environmental pressure on reefs.Although coral reefs harbor more than 25 percent of all known fish species and the greatest biodiversity of any ocean ecosystem, their health has been in steep decline since the 1980s, when scientists first noticed widespread bleaching from thermal stress.

Beyond shallow waters, the survey will use diving robots to explore reefs at a depth of roughly 100 to 225 feet, where little research has been conducted.

The project will use satellite tags to track the migratory behavior of 50 ocean fauna, including green turtles and manta rays, which are both listed as threatened species by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

Alongside the Catlin Group and the University of Queensland, a nonprofit called Underwater Earth and Google are partners in the survey. Through its Google Earth and Maps platforms, Google has offered to provide free public access to an anticipated 50,000 panoramic images, which will focus on 20 sites along the reef.

?Millions of people will be able to experience the life, the science and the magic that exists under the surface of our oceans,? Dr. Hoegh-Guldberg said in announcing the project this month at the World Oceans Summit in Singapore. He said the survey would ?reveal to the public one of the last frontiers on Earth.?