Caribbean Coral Suffers Record Death

AP News ^ | 03/30/2006 | SETH BORENSTEIN

[LM_Guy]

WASHINGTON (AP) - A one-two punch of bleaching from record hot water followed by disease has killed ancient and delicate coral in the biggest loss of reefs scientists have ever seen in Caribbean waters.

Researchers from around the globe are scrambling to figure out the extent of the loss. Early conservative estimates from Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands find that about one-third of the coral in official monitoring sites has recently died.

"It's an unprecedented die-off," said National Park Service fisheries biologist Jeff Miller, who last week checked 40 stations in the Virgin Islands. "The mortality that we're seeing now is of the extremely slow-growing reef-building corals. These are corals that are the foundation of the reef ... We're talking colonies that were here when Columbus came by have died in the past three to four months."

Some of the devastated coral can never be replaced because it only grows the width of one dime a year, Miller said.

Coral reefs are the basis for a multibillion-dollar tourism and commercial fishing economy in the Caribbean. Key fish species use coral as habitat and feeding grounds. Reefs limit the damage from hurricanes and tsunamis. More recently they are being touted as possible sources for new medicines.

If coral reefs die "you lose the goose with golden eggs" that are key parts of small island economies, said Edwin Hernandez-Delgado, a University of Puerto Rico biology researcher.

On Sunday, Hernandez-Delgado found a colony of 800-year-old star coral - more than 13 feet high that had just died in the waters off Puerto Rico.

"We did lose entire colonies," he said. "This is something we have never seen before."

On Wednesday, Tyler Smith, coordinator of the U.S. Virgin Islands Coral Reef Monitoring program, dived at a popular spot for tourists in St...

[Louis Foxwell]

For some reason those who believe the most ferverently in evolution are the ones that complain the most as it takes its course.

_______________________

Absolutely right. All corals grow the thickness of a dime a year. The die off will regrow in a year. I have been raising corals for about 10 years. This is a normal cycle. Only those who seek greater controls over human trespass of the earth are aghast and shocked. It is all an act. There is no catastrophe.

[EEDUDE]

It's well known that when coral gets covered with sand it dies off.

I have done a lot of diving in the Caribbean, and in places where they dredged in new sand to counter beach erosion, the coral in that area died.

If I had to guess, I would say that hurricanes in the area the last few years are responsible for deposition of sand on the reefs.

I believe you are correct. They will regrow.

[surely_you_jest]

Arggh! I broke down and looked it up. The millstone case. Well. It has been a long time. Still, a nice screen name.

[UCANSEE2]

"It keeps getting worse !!"

Things change. We are in a part of the galaxy (happens every 65 million years) where odd things happen to our solar system.

The surface of many planets and moons will change.
Even ours.
The coral reefs in one area suffered big losses.

Wait until it's humans on a scale you have not seen before.

The magnetic poles may switch, even though we are not quite sure what effect that will have. It may be superfluous.

Last year, we had a MCE (mass coronal ejection) that gave emissions in the x-ray spectrum only, but 100's of times stronger than any previously known. The main thrust of this MCE barely missed the Earth, glancing off one edge.

Had it hit square on, I suspect we would not be having this discussion, as many of us would be dead, and many of the satellites would have been disabled.

The term FRENCH FRIED would likely describe what would have happened.

There is a large potential for massive catastrophe and change during our journey through the center plane of the galaxy, so hold on tight to your seat, because,

You ain't seen nothing, yet!

[Moonman62]

How long have they been monitoring these reefs? How can they be so sure this is an unprecedented event?

Coral leaves a record like tree rings, except over a much longer period of time.

[Hadley V. Baxendale]

If it wasn't my first contracts case, it was certainly in the first week of school.

It's pretty esoteric, I know, but I thought it would be amusing to some. ;-)

[Hadley V. Baxendale]

A coral reef might reduce some wave action on the fringes of the storm, but it would do nothing to protect the northeast quadrant. It's lame to toss hurricane protection into a story like this.

Waves aren't the problem.