[Coral-List] Sea Urchins eating iron cannons, RE: Coral-List Digest, Vol 53, Issue 16
Seven Seas Ltd - Henry E. Tonnemacher
go7seas at hotmail.com
Mon Jan 14 14:10:06 EST 2013
Dear Eugene Shinn, In my many years of diving on many cannons at many sites in the Caribbean, the cannons and mortars at this particular site in St. Croix are the ONLY ones I have ever seen with any evidence of burrowing urchins. These particular burrows are below any carbonate crust that has formed and are into the iron cannons themselves. Absent time-lapse video and further chemical analysis I see no reasonable explanation of the urchins found in these burrows. Hank
Message: 4
Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2013 10:09:16 -0500
From: Eugene Shinn <eshinn at marine.usf.edu>
Subject: [Coral-List] Sea Urchins eating iron cannons
To: coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
Message-ID: <a0623090fcd19cf125880@[131.247.136.119]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed"
Dear, Hank Tonnemacher, In my earlier years I salved quite a few old
cannons and still have one in my front yard. They all had a a thick
oxide and carbonate crust and lots of coral. After cleaning them off
I never saw evidence of urchins burrowing into the iron. I think they
just burrow into the thick encrustation. Gene
--
No Rocks, No Water, No Ecosystem (EAS)
------------------------------------ -----------------------------------
E. A. Shinn, Courtesy Professor
University of South Florida
College of Marine Science Room 221A
140 Seventh Avenue South
St. Petersburg, FL 33701
<eshinn at marine.usf.edu>
Tel 727 553-1158----------------------------------
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