[Coral-List] African Dust Troubles
Craig Lilyestrom
craig at caribe.net
Tue Jul 26 14:29:33 EDT 2005
I've wondered what the impact of the dust from the Sahara has been
for corals in the past. This is not a recent phenomenon, as far as I
am aware. Corals in the Caribbean evolved in presence of this dust,
right?
--Craig
Puerto Rico
On Jul 26, 2005, at 11:56 AM, Melissa Keyes wrote:
> Hello Listers.
>
> I've lived in the Caribbean most of my adult life, and believe me,
> the African dust is very troublesome.
>
> Every island has allergy centers. People have a lot of problems
> with their breathing, sinusses and skin (rashes) from these
> attacks. I've read that the dust is full of chemicals, DDT being
> one, and all sorts of 'microbes'.
>
> For the last few days we've had pinkish-gray skys here in the
> Virgin Islands from the dust. Mold counts are off the scale, but I
> don't know if the mold comes from the dust.
>
> One theory is that the Elkhorn corals all died from something in
> the dust.
>
> There is a coat of dust all over everything, you can swipe your
> finger over your car and come up with a brown crust. Not a kilo,
> but a significant amount. This accumulates in our cisterns, and
> needs to be cleaned out occasionally. One that I cleaned had a few
> centimeters of reddish brown goo in the bottom.
>
> Cheers from Paradise,
>
> Melissa Keyes
>
> St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands
>
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