Elevated water temperature is not the only problem associated with el nino. In Ecuador, heavy rainfall along the coast (about ten times the normal average precipitation during the 97/98 event) produced massive outwash of sediments into estuaries and coastal waters suffocating all sedentary mollusks in some areas. More than 6 meters of sediments were deposited in some parts of the Chone Estuary; the commercial harvest of concha prieta (Anadara tuberculosa) was wiped out there. Along the entire coast, the water has been turbid for over 2 years now. Even though we have supposedly entered a nina phase, rainfall has been greater than normal in 1999 and the deposition of sediments has continued. To a large extent this erosion is a result of recent deforestation along the coastal plain, but in several locations I have found large beds of Ostrea corteziensis beneath stands of mangrove vegetation. They appear to have been buried during el nino events during prehistory. In fact, I have never found living O. corteziensis in Ecuador and since they disappear abruptly from archaeological deposits (about 1000 years ago) having previously been abundant, I wonder if this species was not eliminated from Ecuador by some combination of over exploitation and el nino effects. kate