[Coral-List] Sargassum Season and Dust
Risk, Michael
riskmj at mcmaster.ca
Wed Jul 17 18:50:59 UTC 2019
Ulf, when you are in a hole, stop digging.
We all have bad ideas. I have had far more than my share. It's never a
good policy, however, to defend a bad idea just because someone else
pointed out that it was one.
No one would deny illegal mining was a problem*: it was you who
suggested it might account for Caribbean reef decline. That sort of
thing just makes my stomach hurt. This will invite another round of
"it's not us, it's illegal mining." This will just muddy the waters.
You have responded to me without bothering to check any of the extant
HM records from the Caribbean. I suggest you do so. Talk to the people
who know this field. Read my paper on the record of the Orinoco. Do
some mass-balance work.
* I regret I cannot say more at this juncture, but: yeah, illegal
mining shows up nicely-where it occurs.
Mike
__________________________________________________________________
From: Ulf Erlingsson [ceo at lindorm.com]
Sent: July 17, 2019 1:13 PM
To: Risk, Michael
Cc: Pawlik, Joseph; coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
Subject: Re: [Coral-List] Sargassum Season and Dust
Mike,
"If illegal mining were really a widespread problem"
illegal mining _IS_ a widespread problem.
It is not an hypothesis. It is a FACT.
If it reaches the Caribbean is another matter, but if someone suggests
that contaminants from the Amazon and the Orinoco affects the Caribbean
corals, then Hg most definitely does as well, by logic, since it is a
main pollutant in the Orinoco.
Ulf Erlingsson
On 2019-07-17, at 12:58 , Risk, Michael <[1]riskmj at mcmaster.ca> wrote:
Ulf, the LAST thing this debate needs is another unsupported
hypothesis.
If illegal mining were really a widespread problem, then Hg would have
shown up in any of the many TE profiles already taken in the Caribbean.
Many of these have been published (yeah, some by me).
We know that the Caribbean decline was well under way by 1980.
The really sad part is: Brian's results are no surprise to those who
have been watching this over the years.
Mike
________________________________________
From: Coral-List [[2]coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov] on behalf
of Ulf Erlingsson via Coral-List [[3]coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov]
Sent: July 17, 2019 10:29 AM
To: Pawlik, Joseph
Cc: [4]coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
Subject: Re: [Coral-List] Sargassum Season and Dust
My two cents: Don't ignore the large scale illegal mining in the
Orinoco, which pollutes the river with things like mercury and cyanide.
This illegal mining has been going on since the 1990s in significant
scale, but it has now accelerated, and it is now the main source of
income for the dictatorship in Caracas (alongside cocaine smuggling,
which also pollutes to be sure).
It is not impossible that the increase of illegal mining (mostly of
gold) has grown in a general rate that is consisten with the decline of
corals in the Caribbean, so I would suggest to look into that. The
problem is of course to find statistics on an illegal activity, but one
can use proxies, speak to the locals (the Native Americans living in
the rainforest in question, notably one national park in the state of
Amazonas in Venezuela), and judge the "progress" on satellite images.
Ulf Erlingsson
Lindorm, Inc.
10699 NW 123rd Street Road
Medley, FL 33178-6166
On 2019-07-16, at 20:54 , Pawlik, Joseph via Coral-List
<[5]coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> wrote:
Thanks for the brief review, Gene,
The Sahara dust hypothesis is an intriguing one, both in terms of
iron enrichment resulting in widespread Caribbean nutrification, and
as a potential source of pathogens. My colleagues and I have
included dust in some recent synthesis papers related to Caribbean
reef ecosystem function (see below).
But as I communicated to Gene a few months back, I'm having doubts
about dust.
Recent trips to the Red Sea reveal highly oligotrophic reef systems
that are dumped on regularly by desert dust. Check out this video of
the reefs off Egypt:
[6]https://youtu.be/DKGlOfa1clw<https://nam05.safelinks.protection.o
utlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fyoutu.be%2FDKGlOfa1clw&data=01%7C01%7C
pawlikj%40uncw.edu%7C816e7d31de284894298608d6f3e70234%7C221367819753
4c75af2868a078871ebf%7C1&sdata=dUMUvCZL9B0AAc%2BiBBQJh4VKunl1oqkiQmT
fVq5WRM0%3D&reserved=0><[7]https://youtu.be/DKGlOfa1clw%3Chttps://na
m05.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fyoutu.be%2FD
KGlOfa1clw&data=01%7C01%7Cpawlikj%40uncw.edu%7C816e7d31de28489429860
8d6f3e70234%7C2213678197534c75af2868a078871ebf%7C1&sdata=dUMUvCZL9B0
AAc%2BiBBQJh4VKunl1oqkiQmTfVq5WRM0%3D&reserved=0%3E>
In the water column above Red Sea reefs, there was visible
trichodesmium, near daily accumulations of dust on the boat deck,
but on the reefs, no seaweeds, sponges, or coral disease.
What is different is that there are no river inputs to the Red Sea,
and a LOT of freshwater coming into the Caribbean from the Amazon
(driven N by surface currents), Orinoco, Magdelena, and Mississippi
(see the vicious circle hypothesis paper, below). We've also found
that the sponges on the Saudi side of the Red Sea are starving as
you move offshore along a gradient of decreasing DOC, something we
don't see in the Caribbean, where levels of labile DOC seem to be
higher, probably because of all the seaweed.
In short, I think river inputs (and DOC) are much more important
than dust in explaining the difference between Caribbean reefs and
those in other parts of the tropics.
Any thoughts from the oceanographers at KAUST?
Regards,
Joe
Pawlik, J.R., Burkepile, D.E., Vega Thurber, R. 2016. A vicious
circle? Altered carbon and nutrient cycling may explain the low
resilience of Caribbean coral reefs. BioScience, 66: 470-476
doi:10.1093/biosci/biw047.
Pawlik, J.R., McMurray, S.E. 2020. The emerging ecological and
biogeochemical importance of sponges on coral reefs. Annual Review
of Marine Science, 12: 3.1-3.23
Wooster, M.K., McMurray, S.E., Pawlik, J.R., Moran, X.A., Berumen,
M.L. 2019. Feeding and respiration by giant barrel sponges across a
gradient of food abundance in the Red Sea. Limnology and
Oceanography, 64:1790-1801
**************************************************************
Joseph R. Pawlik
Frank Hawkins Kenan Distinguished Professor of Marine Biology
Dept. of Biology and Marine Biology
UNCW Center for Marine Science
5600 Marvin K Moss Lane
Wilmington, NC 28409
Office:(910)962-2377; Cell:(910)232-3579
Website: [8]http://people.uncw.edu/pawlikj/index.html <[9]http://peo
ple.uncw.edu/pawlikj/index.html>
PDFs: [10]http://people.uncw.edu/pawlikj/pubs2.html <[11]http://peop
le.uncw.edu/pawlikj/pubs2.html>
Video
Channel: [12]https://www.youtube.com/user/skndiver011 <[13]https://w
ww.youtube.com/user/skndiver011>
**************************************************************
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From: Coral-List
<[14]coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov <[15]mailto:coral-list-b
ounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>> on behalf of Eugene Shinn via
Coral-List
<[16]coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov <[17]mailto:coral-list at coral.aom
l.noaa.gov>>
Sent: Monday, July 15, 2019 5:47 PM
To: [18]coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov <[19]mailto:coral-list at coral.
aoml.noaa.gov>
Subject: [Coral-List] Sargassum Season
Melissa is correct. "There has been a lot of Sahara Dust over the
same
area where the Sargassum has proliferated."
Many coral-list readers will remember that I have blamed many
events,
including the demise of Caribbean corals, on microbes and toxic
minerals
in African dust. As shown by Joe Prospero at the University of
Miami,
what is often called Saharan dust is in fact soil dust originating
in a
vast area south the Sahara called the Sahel. I spent more than10
years
devoted to the study of African dust and for several years led a
USGS
project devoted to its study. Our project included two
microbiologists,
a coral biologist who lived in the Virgin Islands and a geochemist.
The
study began with funding from NASA to hire our first microbiologist.
Before our congressional funded project ended in 2006 over 200 live
microbes had been identified. Viruses, including one that causes
foot
and mouth disease in cattle are many times more abundant. They
remain to
be studied. The research was initially stimulated by the demise of
Caribbean corals, including the Florida reef tract. Disease of
Acroporid
corals peaked in 1983 the same year the sea urchin /Diadema/ began
dying
throughout the Caribbean. What led us to African dust were several
peer
reviewed scientific papers demonstrating that the Amazon rainforest
receives most of its essential nutrients form African dust. Tree
limbs
high above flood level sprout roots to take advantage of the red
nutrient rich soil that often coats the limbs. Air plants also
thrive on
the dust. We soon learned that red soils and hard surface crusts on
most
Caribbean islands and the Florida Keys are composed of clay minerals
and
fine-grained quartz silt. The red brown color is due to oxidized
iron
common to the millions of tons of African dust that reach this side
of
the Atlantic Ocean each year. There are no local sources of these
minerals on Caribbean island. Most Caribbean islands surrounded by
deep
oceanic waters consist entirely of limestone constructed by corals
including sands and mud precipitated from seawater. The Bahaman
banks
and islands cap 15,000 feet of limestone. I will refrain from boring
readers with any more geology.
What is most striking are satellite images indicating the path of
this
dust during summer months (July-November). The pattern is identical
to
the present distribution of Sargassum mats now extending from West
Africa to the Caribbean and that periodically enters the Gulf of
Mexico
and then moves northward to cities in the northern Gulf including
Houston and Dallas. Often these clouds of dust turn eastward and
head
back into the Atlantic where they circle the Bermuda High and settle
over the Sargasso Sea. Creation of Red tides in the Gulf of Mexico
have
also been attributed to iron fertilization from African dust.
(During
winter months the dust clouds take a southerly rout into the Amazon
basin) This year we had our first influx of dust in the Gulf of
Mexico
in late June. Meanwhile lake Chad in the Sahel which was about100
miles
in diameter in 1960, has shrunk to less than 10 miles. Its huge
drying
lakebed is increasingly blowing across the Atlantic while even more
is
arriving from the Bodel depression. Dr. Joe Prospero has been
publishing
and monitoring the origin and abundance of these dust clouds since
the
1960s.
Like Melissa and many others who have experienced the dust clouds in
St.
Croix, know exactly what she is talking about. Ask any resident or
medical doctor on Caribbean islands and they will tell you that
patients
arrive with respiratory problems when the red/hazy clouds of dust
arrive. This is especially true for Barbados and Trinidad. Every
sailboat owner in the Virgin Islands is familiar with the red dust
they
wash from sails and decks. Many are familiar with the red mud that
accumulates in their water cisterns. I have collected the red mud
from
the bottom of cisterns on several islands in the Caribbean. With
this
background I like Melissa, was greatly surprised to see a paper in
Nature attributing the Atlantic Sargassum bloom to run-off from the
Amazon and upwelling of nutrient rich Atlantic waters. There was no
mention of fertilization from atmospheric dust as a possible source.
Possibly it is just another chicken or egg question. Gene
--
No Rocks, No Water, No Ecosystem (EAS)
------------------------------------
-----------------------------------
E. A. Shinn, Courtesy Professor
University of South Florida
College of Marine Science Room 221A
140 Seventh Avenue South
St. Petersburg, FL 33701
<[20]eugeneshinn at mail.usf.edu>
Tel 727 553-1158
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8. http://people.uncw.edu/pawlikj/index.html
9. http://people.uncw.edu/pawlikj/index.html
10. http://people.uncw.edu/pawlikj/pubs2.html
11. http://people.uncw.edu/pawlikj/pubs2.html
12. https://www.youtube.com/user/skndiver011
13. https://www.youtube.com/user/skndiver011
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