[Coral-List] NEED ADVICE!! - ACTIVE MORTALITY EVENT AT FLOWER GARDENS!

[Frank Muller-Karger]

Dear colleagues -
I had sent this to the coral list yesterday (THURS  7/28/16) morning but 
it seems it was not posted. In the meantime we are working with the 
FGBNMS and the ONMS and the satellite data images to show how it 
impacted different parts of the Sanctuary.

The FGBNMSanctuary is working on sampling waters and the benthos.

Also working with Villy Kourafalou and Matt Lehenaff to understand the 
causes for the offshore dispersal of the plume in this area at this time.

Frank

My message to Steve Gittings and the coral-list yesterday ---

Hello Steve -

physically I am not sure what it is we can do but my sense is that water
samples be collected and examined for nutrient, oxygen, salinity, and
preserve it for analysis of toxic materials especially metals like
copper and heavier.

I don't think this is temperature or just temperature.

There has been a massive amount of rain over Texas and Louisiana over
the last few months.

The satellite images for this area over the past few days are pretty
poor due to cloud cover, but the images for several days ago show
massive amounts of coastal water from the LA-TEX area, likely also much
of Mississippi water, has moved over the FGBNMS area.



See these images:

JUL 12
http://imars.usf.edu/modis/husf/pass/1/chlora/gcoos/2016-07-12-172000-2016-07-12-172459-36

JUL 13
http://imars.usf.edu/modis/husf/pass/1/chlora/gcoos/2016-07-13-163000-2016-07-13-163459

JUL 18
http://imars.usf.edu/modis/husf/pass/1/chlora/gcoos/2016-07-18-164000-2016-07-18-164459

JUL 20
http://imars.usf.edu/modis/husf/pass/1/chlora/gcoos/2016-07-20-163000-2016-07-20-163459

We'd need to see if we can get better images, and build a time series
with anomalies to see how often this really happens.
The FGBNMS area normally does not get the direct input from the
Mississippi or coastal low salinity water - this water stays closer to
the coast. This year this plume offshore does seem anomalous.

Frank

-- 

__________________ FMK __________________
Frank Muller-Karger
Institute for Marine Remote Sensing/IMaRS
College of Marine Science
University of South Florida
140 7th Ave. South
St Petersburg, FL 33701

Phones:
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   (727) 553-1186 Lab.
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e-mail/www:
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