Coral Re-growth on the Great Barrier Reef: A Note from Bob Halstead
Posted by jennifer, March 25th, 2008 - under Uncategorized.
Tags: Coral Reefs
In July 2002 I was helping teach an underwater photography course for students at James Cook University. Day trips to the outer barrier were organised from Port Douglas. On the reef I mostly saw dead coral smothered with rafts of brown algae, and struggled to find any living invertebrates for the students to photograph. It was depressing.
However, in October 2007 I made a live-aboard cruise up the reef, and a day trip out of Cairns, which cheered me up enormously. All along the outer reef there were dramatic signs of coral regeneration. There were reefs covered with small plate corals of various species, and other corals, which looked, from my experience in Papua New Guinea, to be of the order of 1-3 years growth. Here are some of the photographs I took.
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Bob Halstead
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Bob, Are you sure?
Its not supposed to be happening!
Coral is supposed to be dying; another victim of “global warming”.
Modern corals evolved 250 million years ago, when oceans were far more acidic than they are currently. In other words, corals evolved in a very acidic ocean, and have survived large numbers of extreme climate fluctuations–warmings to glaciations to warmings etc.
Coral seems to be reacting badly to sunscreens, but a bit of experimentation should allow development of human skin suncreens that are coral-friendly.
I am holding my anger in, but just barely. These faux environmentalists and climate orthodoxers have pegged the needle on the stupidly-disingenuous-o-meter.
Indeed. It is probably not a very good idea to use indexes, models, annecdotes and circumstantial evidence to provide a basis for supporting your hypothesis, is it.
Peter: It is probably not a very good idea to use indexes, models, annecdotes and circumstantial evidence to provide a basis for supporting your hypothesis, is it.
The impulse to research it properly has to come from somewhere and the working hypothesis has to be based on something.
I can not argue with that Jan.
Well, Bob, there is nothing like a good news story to rid the thread of doom and gloomers. This excellent post has gone down with them like a curried egg fart in a slow elevator.