[Coral-List] Newly discovered reef

[Eugene Shinn]

Thanks Doug, You are so right. I would like to point out that the deep 
core atEnewetak was drilled in the center of Oak crater. It was a 
9-megaton shot initiated in 14 ft of water on the leeward side of the 
shallow reef flat. . I was on the ship that did the coring and had 
already operated a diver operated coring project on the shallow reef 
ward margin of Oak Crater.I produced a 16 mm film of the coring project 
for the Defense Nuclear Agency so I am not surprised that the Volcanic 
rock was down so deep. I might point out that the coring demonstrated 
that the limestone was crushed many meters below ground zero which is 
presently about 200 ft deep. With that said I contend that had the 
coring taken place near the center of the Atoll volcanics would have 
been encountered at a much shallower depth. (that is compatible with the 
Darwin hypothesis)

I might also mention that seaward of the large crater made by the first 
hydrogen device a portion of the reef about the size of a city block 
broke off the outer edge of the reef flat and sank in several thousand 
feet of rock. The event produced a huge vertical outcrop of reef 
limestone. We dove on that outcrop to a depth of 1000 ft using the Delta 
submarine. Yes, is was coral limestone all the way down as we could go 
with the sub. The outcrop also revealed solution caves that contained 
both stalagtites and stalagmites demonstrating that at least that 
portion of the reef limestone had once been exposed to fresh water.(If 
you Google Earth Enewetak you can see the craters and the broken edge of 
the reef flat. Gene

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No Rocks, No Water, No Ecosystem (EAS)
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E. A. Shinn, Courtesy Professor
University of South Florida
College of Marine Science Room 221A
140 Seventh Avenue South
St. Petersburg, FL 33701
<eugeneshinn at mail.usf.edu>
Tel 727 553-1158
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