Moruroa Atoll

[Coral Health and Monitoring Program]

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.  

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|                                                       | 
| 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             |  
|                                                       | 
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================================ 

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