[Coral-List] Uplifted coral reefs

[Gregor Hodgson]

Re: [Coral-List] Uplifted coral reefsHi Folks,

In case you missed the previous posts, photos taken by Dr. Craig Shuman on a
February Reef Check expedition to Simeulue Island, the nearest to the Dec
epicenter show uplift that raised kilometers of coastline.
http://www.reefcheck.org/PDFs/Indoquake.pdf    Other pics are available from
<rcinfo at reefcheck.org>.

For those interested in W. Sumatran reefs, note that earlier surveys there
(late 1990s) showed very low coral cover and this was attributed by local
dive operators and one post-hoc scientific assessment published in a local
journal, to bleaching and a massive algal bloom possibly associated with
forest fires.

Regards,

Greg
  -----Original Message-----
  From: Serge Andrefouet [mailto:serge at marine.usf.edu]
  Sent: Saturday, May 07, 2005 8:28 AM
  To: Gene Shinn; coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
  Cc: eo-contact at eodomo.gsfc.nasa.gov
  Subject: Re: [Coral-List] Uplifted coral reefs


  Hi Gene,

  Interesting. There are no doubts some areas were uplifted and I guess you
  have adequate ground-truthing around Nias, but these images alone would
not
  demonstrate anything. The older one has a nice swell coming in (good surf
  that day in Nias I guess), and the later image has calmer seas. Also there
  may be a tide difference. The difference of signal along the crest can be
  only due to different set-up on the flats/crests and thus in differences
in
  swell and tide, not uplifting. It is very common to see this on pair of
  images of the same site. No unambiguous changes on reefs detectable from
  space here, just different environmental conditions.

  As a clear example of similar pseudo-changes, there are two samples of
  Landsat images of a section of Majuro atoll (Marshalls) during two
  different tide cycles, different south swell conditions and different
dates
  on http://imars.marine.usf.edu/~serge/Majuro .

  Cheers,

  S.




  A 04:55 PM 5/6/2005 -0400, Gene Shinn a écrit :
  >There has been much discussion on the coral-list about tsunami effects on
  >coral reefs in Indonesia but how many know of the extensive reef areas
  >around Sumatra that were uplifted (100 percent mortality)
  >as much as 2.5 meters by the more recent earthquake?  To see a portion of
  >the uplifted reefs, recently surveyed by USGS geologists, see the
  >satellite images at,
  >http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=16
892
  >Gene
  >--
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  >
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  >E. A. Shinn
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  Serge Andrefouet
  UR Coreus - Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)
  BP A5 - 98848 Nouméa cedex - Nouvelle Calédonie
  Tél : (+687) 26 08 00 - Fax : (+687) 26 43 26 - andrefou at noumea.ird.nc

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