[Coral-List] Newly discovered reef (?) is taller than a skyscraper
Kosmynin, Vladimir
Vladimir.Kosmynin at FloridaDEP.gov
Fri Nov 6 14:51:18 UTC 2020
Doug, Alina, listers,
My apologies for mistakes in numbers I made in yesterday’s message; late evening writing is no good for estimates.
Below are the numbers what they supposed to be:
4.5-5.0 m/100 yr (45-50 mm/yr)
27.5 m rise in 7000 yr (~4 mm/yr or ~4 m/1000yr)
Or 1mm/yr = 0.1m/100yr = 1m/1000yr
Accelerated melting which is happening now in Antarctic and Greenland potentially may lead in next 100 years to sea level rise similar to what is in the first line, i.e. in Meltwater pulses of early Holocene. Many coral reefs under such scenario would become submerged in few meters.
Regards,
Vladimir Kosmynin
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<mailto:vladimir.kosmynin at FloridaDEP.gov>
Tel: (850)245-7622
From: Kosmynin, Vladimir
Sent: Thursday, November 05, 2020 11:20 PM
To: Douglas Fenner <douglasfennertassi at gmail.com>
Cc: Alina Szmant <alina at cisme-instruments.com>; coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
Subject: RE: Newly discovered reef (?) is taller than a skyscraper
Doug,
There is no simple answer to your last question: why some reefs able to “keep up” or even “catch up” with subsidence even, while others “give up” and become coral banks or just banks, even being in warm tropical waters. Water temperatures is just one of numerous factors controlling coral reef growth. Just a few of them below, far not all.
Obviously, very important is the rate of subsidence, which would be a sum of glacio-eustatic and local vertical tectonic movement. In each of three Meltwater pulses (1A, 1B, 1C) which happened between 14600 yr ago and 7600 yr ago, the sea level rise was 4.5-5.0 m/100 yr (4.5-5.0 mm/yr) with total 27.5 m rise in 7000 yr (~4 mm/yr or ~40 m/1000yr). If at the same time happened tectonic subsidence, coral buildup hardly can keep up with rapid subsidence, because average coral reef buildup in Holocene was 5-10 m/1000 yr. That is why we do not know reefs that would keep up growing from the time of the beginning of deglaciation (~22-20Ky ago), from about 100-130 m below present level. By far we know only one case, it is in French Polynesia, where accumulated over 100 m of coral reef in the time of deglaciation (if I am not mistaken, it is in Moorea, work of Pirazzoli, Montaggioni and coauthors). Later, passing 7000 years ago, the rate of glacio-eustatic sea level rise considerably slowed down, and that time most of Holocene coral reefs could grow keeping up with sea level rise or catching up from relatively shallow antecedent relief.
Great role in the rate of reef-building/reef growth would play local set of reef-building coral species. For example, if one Atlantic reef for some reasons doesn’t have Acropora palmata, it wouldn’t be able to grow vertically as fast as a reef with A. palmata, because few other main reef-building species in the Atlantic do not have the same rate of growth as A. palmata. Somebody would say that A. cervicornis can grow as fast if not faster. Yes, but it would be able to build a reef only in unique situation where A. cervicornis bush is not periodically turning to rubble. Rear example of such reefs built by A. cervicornis (and kept up with rising sea level) would be recently described by Vasil Zlatarski unusual type of reefs in muddy waters of Gulf of Guacanayabo in Cuba.
Of the other factors, very critical are antecedent relief (i.e. subaerial relief occupied by reef-building corals during sea level rise/submergence) and sedimentary environment (in worst case scenario the excess of sediments can “shut down” reef-building completely). Submergence of gentle slopes with plenty of sediments would obviously restrict coral reef formation. On the other end, very steep slops would not be able to hold large coral accumulation and, I guess, you have seen sections of such slopes being grown to overhangs, and saw some of them ultimately collapsed.
Water clarity is a factor; as you know well, photosynthesis is very important for the growth reef-building corals.
In a short, there are several factors, and even in single atoll, one can find one side successfully “keeping up”, while the other is getting submerged.
We have number of great publications by coral reef geologists like Ian McIntyre, Gene Shinn, Barbara Lidz, Edward Purdy, Paolo Pirazzoli, Lucien Montaggioni, and many others (apologies for not giving all names) who described how reefs were growing in last glacial cycle.
Regards,
Vladimir Kosmynin
From: Douglas Fenner <douglasfennertassi at gmail.com<mailto:douglasfennertassi at gmail.com>>
Sent: Thursday, November 05, 2020 3:15 PM
To: Kosmynin, Vladimir <Vladimir.Kosmynin at FloridaDEP.gov<mailto:Vladimir.Kosmynin at FloridaDEP.gov>>
Cc: Alina Szmant <alina at cisme-instruments.com<mailto:alina at cisme-instruments.com>>; coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov<mailto:coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
Subject: Re: Newly discovered reef (?) is taller than a skyscraper
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/<https://secure-web.cisco.com/1LUde8_GTVxYlw8acBdULug9YUXyhubTAvzrv0iQLznIXJfP8I28gap9cFevgYQ6dE8T-kYkEjiVqXhYhrl3scCfSEb15JZnXBf5444t30kU98Yr4YyEfwBbpciVWtBnSwL90MhZEXwM1ueC3ZRR9o4wV-GNEHn7dxxOB22Xqse9svg3CSYL6zXG_7X15Qg2fjyf5GBpISCV4mSVGzXmWM6U3EcDUTVMNSHP8Yqy1KIPdDI2qwXP9zs3aiFK7Ck5treVq5D3MSPV4isibUOr-5FzsTxkxlhZ9oLV-YEdAJHFquxMoJw1DODlDIg2AU_vKHCHPZeYjfDMRfydvB5fPWw/https%3A%2F%2Fearthref.org%2FSC%2F> 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<mailto: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<mailto:vladimir.kosmynin at FloridaDEP.gov>
Tel: (850)245-7622
-----Original Message-----
From: Alina Szmant <alina at cisme-instruments.com<mailto:alina at cisme-instruments.com>>
Sent: Thursday, November 05, 2020 12:34 PM
To: Kosmynin, Vladimir <Vladimir.Kosmynin at FloridaDEP.gov<mailto:Vladimir.Kosmynin at FloridaDEP.gov>>; douglasfennertassi at gmail.com<mailto:douglasfennertassi at gmail.com>; coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov<mailto: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<mailto: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<mailto:douglasfennertassi at gmail.com>
Cc: coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov<mailto: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><mailto: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><mailto: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
Australian scientists discover 500 meter tall coral reef in the Great Barrier Reef- first to be discovered in over 120 years https://secure-web.cisco.com/1VEVZyzWv9953hsgqb0Hx8fSWcBcQGUSZSO-Bmooh92b9p_mtJqyb-UfA4jwqiTKe_QfnwSyBnJ6vBeDL8YrnnZ3RnTkKr2cKgaBerVE3WoVXd65zBSTzPS_jzOppudd76VDllVO2mQ2I_rhQ__GWe0hzNy2pWNVVERMAaCo8QO-oe_jcu4WxMw_8CE7Lbh2b_vIuXsW1In4m0dQc-a_28wkGFgNRIdRdoKu_uHZJYoitm4Mg10VUGyMZtcGTkSY9PHjn4_voBCu-T4Hlyo4SwBYYKit1kAproU7WqmkSNi_EMNrmhvAOw41ju4HvaHxaYRKOSWhfRk7oRFOXhVUTDg/https%3A%2F%2Fschmidtocean.org%2Faustralian-scientists-discover-500-meter-tall-coral-reef-in-the-great-barrier-reef-first-to-be-discovered-in-over-120-years%2F
Cheers, Doug
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