[Coral-List] Newly discovered reef (?) is taller than a skyscraper

Thu Nov 5 20:14:31 UTC 2020

All good points, Alina and Vladimir.  I would add that guyots and other
seamounts are abundant particularly in the Pacific.  You can easily see
loads of them in Google Earth.  For those who would like to explore more,
I'd recommend the "Seamount catalogue" https://earthref.org/SC/  You can
get lots of info on seamounts there, and you will see that there is a whole
list of recent discoveries of new seamounts, it is a steady stream.  If
memory serves, it includes some islands as well, probably just smaller
islands.  It should still be possible to get it to show you a contour map
of each one, from which you may be able to see whether it has a flat top or
not.  See their note that you'll need to use "advanced search."  One of the
fun bits of info they provide is the volume of the seamount.  Their volume
is often amazingly large, usually over 100 cubic km, sometimes in the
thousands.
     I'm suddenly remembering that not long ago there was a big fuss about
the big announcement that a big portion of the ocean floor was being mapped
for the first time.  First time??  No, not by a long shot.  Take a look at
Google Earth and tell me the sea floor has not been mapped before.  I'm old
enough to remember when National Geographic first published world maps that
included the sea floor, it was amazing.  A long time ago, I don't remember
when.  So this new study, surely is mapping some areas in more detail, with
higher resolution than they were mapped before.  As seems to be so often
now, the headlines were greatly exaggerated.  If you zoom in on Google
Earth, you will see areas of the sea floor that have much higher resolution
than other areas.  That's great, but it's not mapping them for the first
time.  In some areas the high resolution is in a straight band.  That's the
track of a ship that was recording higher resolution multibeam sonar, I'd
bet.  No ship can cover the whole ocean, but when a ship that has the sonar
is cruising to some location, they leave it on to gather data as they go.
Hence the straight bands of high resolution.
      The Darwin Point that Grigg named, is where the growth rate of the
reef no longer is able to keep up with the rate of subsidence, which in the
Hawaiian-Emperor chain is because the chain is being carried slowly into
higher latitudes with colder water, slowing coral growth.  If there is a
chain somewhere that is not being carried into colder water, it would be
predicted not to have a Darwin Point.
       I agree with Valdimir that a flat top does not necessarily mean it
was a coral reef, and it may not be obvious from a topographic map whether
it was a coral reef on top or not.  Also, interesting, it looks to me like
there are plenty of guyots in the tropics, where cold surface water could
not be the reason that they were unable to keep up with subsidence, since
near surface water is warm.  They would be called "give up reefs" instead
of "keep up reefs" or "catch up reefs."  So some couldn't keep up in waters
of the same temperature as others that did keep up.  Why?
      Cheers, Doug

On Thu, Nov 5, 2020 at 6:46 AM Kosmynin, Vladimir <
Vladimir.Kosmynin at floridadep.gov> wrote:

> Hi Alina, great to hear from you.
>
> The bank that was discovered in the area of GBR would be a guyot only if
> its volcanic nature is confirmed, which looks doubtful to me according to
> tectonic position, but I can be wrong.
> Guyots are not necessarily drowned reefs, as you correctly mentioned.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Vladimir
>
> Vladimir N. Kosmynin, Ph.D.
> Environmental Consultant
> Beaches, Inlets and Ports Program
> Division of Water Resource Management
> Florida Department of Environmental Protection
> 2600 Blair Stone Road, MS 3590 Tallahassee, Florida 32399-2400
> e-mail: vladimir.kosmynin at FloridaDEP.gov
> Tel: (850)245-7622
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Alina Szmant <alina at cisme-instruments.com>
> Sent: Thursday, November 05, 2020 12:34 PM
> To: Kosmynin, Vladimir <Vladimir.Kosmynin at FloridaDEP.gov>;
> douglasfennertassi at gmail.com; coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> Subject: RE: Newly discovered reef (?) is taller than a skyscraper
>
> I have to check this article again for details, but it appears that the
> newly found structure is technically a guyot, a flat top submerged
> seamount. Guyots are usually volcanoes that are emergent when formed, then
> get flattened as they subside below sea level by wave action and subaerial
> erosion. If this happens in the tropics in an area favorable to coral reef
> formation, you basically get the Darwinian atoll formation sequence. If
> after the atoll stage the structure continues to subside, it becomes a
> drowned reef like the many found to the NW of the Hawaiian Island chain.
> Rick Grigg wrote extensively about all this and came up with the Darwin
> Point as the latitude and depth at which coral reef growth can't keep up
> with subsidence (or sea level rise). I am guessing that is the origin of
> this newly found structure. I am pretty sure there are hundreds more out
> there that humans haven't come across yet.
>
> In my opinion, they are just drowned reefs that will suffer the same fate
> of any deeper reef as sea level and ocean temperatures continue to rise.
> Again, a lot of hype by the press and people with little background in
> coral reef geology (or marine geology in general). New seamount but not
> novel or promising or different.
>
>
>
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> -----Original Message-----
> From: Coral-List <coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> On Behalf Of
> Kosmynin, Vladimir via Coral-List
> Sent: Wednesday, November 4, 2020 3:34 PM
> To: douglasfennertassi at gmail.com
> Cc: coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> Subject: [Coral-List] Newly discovered reef (?) is taller than a skyscraper
>
> Doug,
> The news about 500 m tall "coral reef" runs everywhere in press/internet.
> It is very interesting discovery, and I spent evening watching nice video
> recorded from ROV.  Just one comment, which would be in the stream of this
> long conversation about origin of reefs and atolls, importance of
> geomorphology, and appropriate use of terminology. Discovered relief
> feature is not a reef; it is coral bank. The depth of 42 m on top of this
> relief feature tells us that this is not a reef by definition. Somebody
> would ask, if this  bank used to be a coral reef in the past.  Yes, when
> sea level was around 42-45 m below present, it was a reef. Was it coral
> reef or not can be answered by drilling and confirming if it was built or
> at least capped on top by substantial (meters) growth of reef-building
> corals.  The origin of this relief feature would need to be studied to
> state, for example, this this is submerged coral reef, and what it was
> growing on.
>
> I think it was already mentioned, that there is no "deep-water" coral
> reefs, or "mesophotic coral reefs" - these are all coral banks, by
> definition.
> I guess excessive use of term "coral reef" caused by the same desire to
> attract attention, as was mentioned about "Darwin was wrong" article.
>
> Using the occasion, I would like to appreciate all who participated in the
> discussion about origin of atolls and Darwin's work, and especially David
> Blakeway for his advice to young scientists to read more old publications
> (which is applicable also to quite a few of not so young scientists as
> well).
>
> Regards,
>
> Vladimir Kosmynin
>
>
>
> Message: 4
>
> Date: Mon, 2 Nov 2020 10:17:15 -1100
>
> From: Douglas Fenner <douglasfennertassi at gmail.com<mailto:
> douglasfennertassi at gmail.com>>
>
> To: coral list <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov<mailto:
> coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>>
>
> Subject: [Coral-List] new reef is tall
>
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>
> Newly discovered reef is taller than a skyscraper
> https://secure-web.cisco.com/1kXYQikWQhsyy0Sbmq0_RER8yO-BGlw3-EpmG1L2oKVZO1qi60t2iaVmIqITZod8eSG9i7r2tCrZCiH6eTTA-xk6uDqYZnrDSKWhTJA8q4AwNDiqceqnlP-guNTN3jCbglgat3LWhMAOIiLalthKFfT3dnZ9jYV8aaZf7yivMseiOZSYhzC835XTl4R5-d1odJAx_lRx9kjPV9ssO8zvMdhRwkRQUVGLg9GsFymuVPsnmK-tUSXBIh149Rd7pE6GYn6bo8oX_MsuG861TnguOaz-hoIdXNkHMpljvw1-CIpZfno0-1nfj8gCHlvB9I5g6aWng0Ta_8uZi4PHZDsMesTLGKl3r63z9AmqHO8xifKQ/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sciencemag.org%2Fnews%2F2020%2F10%2Fnewly-discovered-reef-taller-skyscraper
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>
>
> Australian scientists discover 500 meter tall coral reef in the Great
> Barrier Reef- first to be discovered in over 120 years
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>
>
> Cheers, Doug
>
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