AFRICAN DUST AND CORAL REEF

[Mark Eakin]

                           Subject:                         Time:   2:53 PM
                           AFRICAN DUST AND CORAL REEFS     Date:   5/21/97

I beleive this origniated on the GreenWire:

CORAL REEFS:  AFRICAN DUST MAY CAUSE DETERIORATION

     A federal geologist has concluded that iron-rich dust generated by 
"drought-stricken" fields in northern Africa is damaging coral reefs from 
the Florida Keys to the Caribbean Sea.

     Gene Shinn initially believed that sewage in the Keys was the cause of 
disease in nearby corals, until he also found the diseases "on little 
islands in the Caribbean where nobody lives." So he began to focus on the 
correlation between African dust "episodes" and coral disease outbreaks.

     As desertification began to spread across northern African in the 
early 1970s, measuring stations in the Caribbean also began recording large 
dust increases.  At the same time, coral reef scientists began to notice 
new disease outbreaks.  Dust levels peaked again in 1987, the year corals 
all over the Caribbean bleached white.

     Shinn, working at the Center for Coastal Geology in St. Petersburg, FL,
 noted that iron in the dust stimulates the growth of algae which damage 
the reefs, and the dust also contains bacterial spores.

     If the dust proves harmful to corals, efforts to reverse 
desertification in northern Africa should increase, according to Duke U. 
marine biologist Richard Barber.  Barber:  "Wouldn't it be wonderful if 
some rock group took saving the coral reefs to heart, and the action would 
be to plant trees and fences in Chad and Mali?" (David Olinger, ST. 
PETERSBURG TIMES, 5/11).