One indeed wonders what is going on!!! Although one might expect warming
to be affecting not only shallow but also deeper-water reef communities,
there are indeed a goodly number of possibilities for the ill-health of
this particular reef system. The report serves, i think, to highlight
our appalling ignorance of deeper-water marine environments in general:
we spend as a society, nearly a trillion dollars a year on wars and
preparing for wars, but when it comes to a few million for research into
what the world is REALLY all about, beyond the sphere of our species,
most folks are crying poor: it seems that money can always be found for
the things a community or country finds important..... makes one think,
doesn;t it? In the grand scheme of things, "pure" or "basic" scientific
research - learning about the way things work in the world and the
universe in general, has always been rather far down the list of
priorities for most people and societies. This high prevelance of apathy
will catch up to us sooner or later, that much is an absolute certainty.

- ross mayhew.

"Martin H. Eastburn" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Thanks Ross -

Since so many islands are reef based not mountain based this is
important.

However, This almost smells like a dead fish.
Almost without fact or information - but a repeated statement
of 'extensive loss of coral' - sounds like a "'global warmer'
if it kills me type".

I would suspect some testing of water for chemical or temp drop.

Hum - off St. John - those big boats dump bilges around the world.

Those traveling into Monterey Bay were watched closely.
IIRC, The Coast Guard caught some others that traveled down coast
and dumped offshore but within limits. With bilge tests the
ship was caught.

The report just seems to governmental nothing.

Wonder what is really going on.

Martin

Ross Mayhew wrote:
I pass this along because the general health of the world ocean, and
especially of reef communities, is of extreme relevance to malacology
and conchology - and both are in steep decline in recent decades.

-Ross Mayhew.

SCIENTISTS DOCUMENT DEEP-WATER CORAL MORTALITY EVENT

Scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, in
cooperation with researchers from the U.S. Geological Survey and
National Park
Service, are reporting the first description of coral loss on a deep U.S.
Caribbean reef. Their findings are reported in this month's issue of the
journal Continental Shelf Research. The coral mortality event on a
deep reef
was detected off St. John in the U.S. Caribbean using a remotely operated
vehicle (ROV) deployed from the NOAA ship Nancy Foster noted during a
sea floor
mapping mission in 2005. "Over the past 30 years we have seen a
tremendous
decrease in live coral cover on shallow reefs in the Caribbean,” said
Mark

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