[Coral-List] African Dust Troubles
kalai21 at earthlink.net
kalai21 at earthlink.net
Wed Jul 27 08:13:34 EDT 2005
The dust is important for the plankton. The quest now is "Does a dust storm of this magnitude occur often?" If they have developed in the presence of dust, how much dust can they withstand?
Kalai
-----Original Message-----
From: Craig Lilyestrom <craig at caribe.net>
Sent: Jul 26, 2005 1:29 PM
To: Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
Subject: Re: [Coral-List] African Dust Troubles
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
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
> http://mail.yahoo.com
> _______________________________________________
> Coral-List mailing list
> Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> http://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list
>
_______________________________________________
Coral-List mailing list
Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
http://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list
More information about the Coral-List
mailing list