A Call for Giant Coral Sightings

[KidK9]

What's a coral driller and why do they do it?

 

[archman]

Usually you apply a modified pneumatic drill to the coral, in the hopes of removing a "plug" of underlying coral skeleton. Since only the uppermost layer of a hermatypic coral head is alive, it's not nearly as directly damaging as say, coring a tree. Nowadays many biologists replace the coral taken with a plug of concrete, to minimize structural damage and keep bioeroders out. Pneumatics also spew out a great deal of ground-up coral, which is normally fanned off the coral head afterwards.

Still, there are real risks to damaging or killing the coral. Nasty diseases have a real penchant for popping up around the borehole margins. Fortunately one only typically takes a single core from a coral head, and the bigger the coral head, the less chance that a disease could kill the whole colony.

Coral cores are used to determine age of the colony, and how fast it grew. They have growth bands that can be seen, sort of like tree rings. By painstaking analysis of growth patterns, one can interpret historical times of stress or bounty. The longer your extracted coral core is, the farther back in time you can usually look.

 

[skinerd]

What people dont understand, is that the information gained by drilling a small amount of coral, serves to further the preservation of coral around the world. If you know of a viable site please don't keep it hidden.

 

[KidK9]

Thanks for the great information.

In terms of what skinerd said tho........a heck of a lot of research done in the medical and scientific world does not go to "the greater good". In fact, a lot of it is worthless, takes up too much time, money, and does more harm that good.

 

[csaenger]

In addition to archmans' comments, I'll add that analyzing changes in the chemistry and elements incorporated into the coral skeleton can allow us to reconstruct water temperature and salinity through the coral's life. If we look at a 300 year record and see that Caribbean temperatures rarely reached the bleaching point until the 20th century, that's a good indication that humans may be a cause. It's only through information like this that the government is willing to foster/fund programs to address many issues facing modern reef ecosystems. While coring a coral may stress that individual, if that sample's information leads to the elimination of a disease or the minimizing of bleaching events, I see it as a worthy sacrifice.

 

[KidK9]

In addition to archmans' comments, I'll add that analyzing changes in the chemistry and elements incorporated into the coral skeleton can allow us to reconstruct water temperature and salinity through the coral's life. If we look at a 300 year record and see that Caribbean temperatures rarely reached the bleaching point until the 20th century, that's a good indication that humans may be a cause. It's only through information like this that the government is willing to foster/fund programs to address many issues facing modern reef ecosystems. While coring a coral may stress that individual, if that sample's information leads to the elimination of a disease or the minimizing of bleaching events, I see it as a worthy sacrifice.

Global warming is not happening. Have you read Crichton's book "State of Fear". You should.

Apply for a governmental research grant BEFORE obtaining coral by damage. If they say no go...then quit doing it. Your research will not stop others from doing what they do....it's just the way they are.

 

[archman]

Global warming is not happening. Have you read Crichton's book "State of Fear". You should.

Most scientists don't agree with it, although it is an extremely convincing read. I know it created quite a furor on the Bad Astronomy forums for a while. It was being picked apart ad minutiae and science folks were getting into shouting matches about statistics equations and atmospheric models. Boy, were those postings fun to read...

The general scientific consensus nowadays is that global warming is taking place (if only a periodic phase), and as data mounts, so does the consensus. The only real questions are the fraction of global warming induced by manmade activity, and whether or no the warming trends will naturally reverse anytime soon.

Apply for a governmental research grant BEFORE obtaining coral by damage. If they say no go...then quit doing it. Your research will not stop others from doing what they do....it's just the way they are.

In U.S. waters, hermatypic corals are protected by law. Many Caribbean nations have similar laws, although hardly anyone enforces them. In any event, scientific research of this sort almost always has to be pre-approved by the government(s) in question. Don't worry, there are few lunatic coral drillers running amok our oceans. eyebrow Those drills are a royal pain to manhandle on scuba, nobody does it for fun. Often it gets relegated to graduate students, who expect pain and hardship.

 

[Nemrod]

As a geologist with MS plus 30, studied coral growth professionally when I worked for an oil company so I could use the data to understand ancient fossil reefs--we drilled no corals--none. I was more interested in modern eco diversity and sedimentation parallels with ancient reefs such as the great Permian Reef. Worthless research destroying coral after coral so they have to do more worthless studies is destroying to much to justify. Has anyone ever noticed how "they" just need one more study. For cripes sake--come up with an answer and then live the freaking coral reefs alone!
Global warming would benefit coral growth more likely than hinder it unless there is some other factors involved--which there are many such as clarity, salinity, ph and on and on and some how I don't think your study will answer a darn thing.

Further, as to global warming, the earth has been warming since we climbed out of the last iceage cyclical event. Actually the Holocene (the age we live in and marked by the rise of human kind) global mean high temperature was around 6,000 years BP. In the last 150 years we have seen a spike in temperature, some of this is obviously related to burning fossil fuels and other gases. The last significant cooling trend within human historical perspective was known as the "Little Ice Age" from about 600AD to about 1200AD (if memory serves). Speaking of which, those ancient fossil fuels we burn are the result of cabon fixation from CO2 via photsynthesis. Where do y'all think all that carbon came from to begin with. The rock cycle--by and by--in geological terms will largely release it back to the atmosphere by erosion as CO2. It is an unending cycle. Of course we need to be good stewards so as not to screw up mechanisms we do not fully understand and err on the side of caution and conservation. The earth will eventually return to a cooling trend, it has done so quite a few times before. N

 

[csaenger]

Of course we need to be good stewards so as not to screw up mechanisms we do not fully understand and err on the side of caution and conservation. The earth will eventually return to a cooling trend, it has done so quite a few times before. N

Don't you think you could be a better steward if you fully understood the mechanisms?

"Global Warming" is about more than just temperature increase. CO2 acts as an acid in ocean, and as CO2 increases in the atmosphere it also increases in the ocean. More CO2 entering the ocean means more acidic, lower pH values... conditions that make it harder for corals to grow. CO2 has been relatively constant through the last 650,000 years, but has doubled since 1850, and there is no reason to think that trend won't continue into the next century. The Earth may return to a cooling trend, but not until we've royally screwed things up.

I encourage you to read this story from BBC news about corals and climate change:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4226917.stm

Also, Michael Crichton is an author, not a scientist, and his book did not go through the rigorous peer review of scientific articles. I also encourage a visit to:

http://www.realclimate.org/

Finally, I'm glad this discussion can occur. I enjoy getting the viewpoint of the diving community on these subjects, but don't feel science possess a threat to the reefs in comparison to climate change, runoff pollution, overfishing, mobs of tourists on cruise ships and other human influences.

 

[Rick Murchison]

If we tell you where they are, you're going to stick a drill into them, aren't you?eyebrow

I hope, nay I pray, that a single core can be passed around to all the folks who want to study one
Rick