Moruroa Atoll

N.V.C. Polunin N.Polunin at newcastle.ac.uk
Mon Aug 7 11:23:12 EDT 1995


Reinhold 

I am disappointed to see you are not attending our 'European Meeting of  
the International Society for Reef Studies here in Newcastle 5-9  
September. Is there any chance you would care to come over and generate  
some discussion on the matter? 

NickP 

On Mon, 17 Jul 1995, Coral Health and Monitoring Program wrote: 

>  
> Greetings, 
>  
> 	The following message from Reinhold Leinfelder had some 
> transmission difficulties on his end and is herewith being 
> retransmitted.  We apologize if this is a duplicate posting for you.  
>  
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 
> |                                                       | 
> | Coral Health and Monitoring Program                   | 
> | Ocean Chemistry Division                              |  
> | Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorlogical Laboratories | 
> | National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration       | 
> | Miami, Florida                                        | 
> | USA                                                   | 
> |                                                       | 
> | Email:          coral at coral.aoml.erl.gov              |  
> | World-Wide Web: http://coral.aoml.erl.gov             |  
> |                                                       | 
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 
>  
>  
> ================================ 
>  
> Dear Colleagues, 
>  
> The present situation at Moruroa Atoll should not only worry us but rather 
> demands some actions also from the Coral Health and Monitoring Group as 
> well as others working on reefs. As reef researchers we all know that reefs 
> are very porous systems which never will be dense and fence off nuclear 
> waste from the surrounding world. This is true even if the atoll will not 
> collapse due to the nuclear explosion. 
>  
> Particularly when judging from the  fossil record reefs are highly porous, 
> open hydrological systems. This is why reefs form the majority of reservoir 
> rocks for giant oil fields. The fact that the oil is entrapped in the reefs 
> is not contradictory to this view: The reef reservoirs are sealed by 
> younger rocks or special tectonic situations. This is not possible in 
> modern reefs which hence are one of the most open hydrological systems. 
> Many oceanic atolls  probably exhibit 'endo-upwelling' which is thought to 
> be caused by stronger heatflow above the volcanic basement, so that 
> additional to the generally high lateral permeability a vertical 
> permeability and water flow from down to the surface might be generated. 
>  
> THIS WAS PARTICULARLY SHOWN FOR MORUROA ATOLL by  Rougerie, F. & Wauthy, B. 
> (1993): The endo-upwelling concept: from geothermal convection to reef 
> construction.- Coral Reefs, 12/1: 19-30, Heidelberg etc. (Springer 
> International). Knowing about these facts, we should open our mouths. 
>  
> I am no member of Greenpeace (I am Professor of Geology and Paleontology at 
> the University of Stuttgart, Germany) but it seems that Greenpeace is the 
> most active group in this aspect and that they try to follow a scientific 
> line, besides all public relation work which is certainly necessary as 
> well. They particularly demand more thorough studies prior to any tests. If 
> you are interested you may see their WWW-page: 
> http://www.greenpeace.org/~comms/rw/rwletter.html . At this page which is 
> from the Greenpeace REsearch Labs, Greenpeace presents a RATIONALE FOR A 
> PROGRAMME OF STUDY TO ASSESS THE IMPACT OF FRENCH NUCLEAR TESTING AT 
> MORUROA AND FANGATAUFA. 
>   Additional information is  on http://www.greenpeace.org/~comms/rw/rw.html. 
> The e-mail address of Greenpeace research labs is: 
> <exeter.lab at green2.greenpeace.org> where you could send a support 
> statement. 
>  
> Be it through Greenpeace, any other institution or directly to the French 
> government or embassy, please act in an appropriate manner as fast as you 
> can! 
>  
> Best wishes Reinhold Leinfelder 
>  
> ******************************************** 
> Reinhold Leinfelder 
> Institut fuer Geologie und Palaeontologie der Universitaet Stuttgart 
> Herdweg 51 
> D-70174 Stuttgart 
> Germany 
>  
> e-mail: reinhold.leinfelder at po.uni-stuttgart.de 
> phone: ++49-711-1211340 
> fax: ++49-711-1211341 
>  



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