In 1981, while conducting his PhD at James Cook University in Townsville, Harrison and a small group of other researchers discovered Mass Coral Spawning[2] through intensive monitoring and diving around Magnetic Island.
[5][6] Harrison and the team were awarded the Eureka Prize for Environmental Research in 1992 for their discovery of mass coral spawning on the Great Barrier Reef.
[7] Harrison led a United Nations funded mission to assess the impacts of the first Gulf War on the coral reefs of Kuwait, and has a new coral species discovered in the Arabian Gulf named after him (Porites Harrisoni).
Peter was appointed to the Australian Government’s Threatened Species Scientific Committee, on which he served from 2005 to 2015.
[8] A sculpture of Peter Harrison was created by Jason deCaires Taylor for the Museum of Underwater Art[9] as part of the Ocean Sentinels above the surface exhibition in 2022 for his contributions.