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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