The COREF Project is designed to perform continental scientific drilling into Quaternary reef-complex deposits in different settings in the Ryukyu Islands to verify the following issues:

• The nature and magnitude of the coral-reef front migration in order to clarify the climatic/oceanographic factors controlling the reef formation.
• The coral reef ecosystem has highly varied responding to climatic changes on millennial to glacial-interglacial timescales.
• The Quaternary carbonate accumulation rates in coral reefs.

Keywords: Asia, Japan, Ryukyu Islands, Climate Change, Coral Reef Drilling, Geobiosphere, Global Environment, Paleoclimatology, Quaternary, Sea-level Changes