How is it that Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is still one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World and visible from outer space.
How is it that we can revisit the corals at Myrmidon Reef – an ancient, detached platform existing beyond the barrier reef proper, exposed to the full force of the Pacific Ocean – that it persists, essentially unchanged season after season.
Despite claims of repeated mass coral bleaching and the reality of severe tropical cyclones, this reef, Myrmidon reef is little changed.
Its waters are still warm and clear – crystal clear. In the ‘Garden of Porites’, in the back lagoon, there are still monster corals more than 3 metres in diameter. These colonies persist as blocks, each of one colour: in olive green, or brilliant blue, while others are a golden yellow.
Can we acknowledge the size and strength of these corals. What can we learn from them? What makes this coral reef, and so many others at the Great Barrier Reef so resilient.
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After my first visit to Myrmidon Reef, on December 1, 2020 with Shaun Frichette and Stuart Ireland I penned something about that experience, and the shark, ’tis here. That was four years ago.
All the photographs in this post were taken by Stuart Ireland.
The feature photograph is of Simon Fenwick in the Garden of Porites at Myrmidon Reef on Friday, 6th September 2024. Simon is a Sydney-based philanthropist who sponsored the charter of the MV Sea Esta for the inaugural Megafauna Expedition.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Thanks for your ongoing work Dr Jen.
As usual the reports of the death of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef have proved premature premature. Dr Jennifer Marohasy and Co’s latest visit to the GBR Megafauna Expedition certainly highlights this.
But surely the public is becoming more cynical about the grossly over funded GBR prophets of doom scientists who are always claiming the GBR is on it’s last legs?
‘One of the most spectacular failed predictions[1] occurred in a 2012 paper that was publicised in all the world’s major media outlets. The coral cover was at low levels after a couple of huge cyclones passed across the reef. The waves from the cyclones killed corals in an area bigger than Belgium and Holland – not huge by Australian standards, but still a fair bit of coral. The scientists stated
“ . . coral cover in the central and southern regions of the GBR is likely to decline to 5–10% by 2022. The future of the GBR therefore depends on decisive action.”
This has been proven to be a ridiculous prediction. Not just a bit wrong – it is as wrong as it could possibly be. The coral cover in 2022 is roughly four times higher than this, and now at record levels. The only decisive action was by the coral – it grew back like it always does.’
Read more on failed predictions of the collapse of the GBR here: https://platogbr.com/failed-predictions/
Thanks James. But I wouldn’t rely on either AIMS or Peter Ridd/Platogbr to understand coral cover or anything else. I detail why both have a poor understanding of the most basic elements of field measurement in an interview that I did here:
https://unbekoming.substack.com/p/the-great-barrier-reef
Cheers, Jennifer
And a big shout out to the late Rob McCulloch, and just to let you know that Stuart and I were back there last week. We missed you. Thanks for being such a good skipper, Stuart captures your skill and how Myrmidon sparkles in this short clip from 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLtN4deEi10
And Myrmidon Reef still sparkles even when it is a bit choppy.
Symbiosis with algae and photosysynthesis. Main stream media don’t know but you should stress it.
Charles Darwin noticed that coral atolls mimic sunken volcanoes.