[Coral-List] Darwin was RIGHT in context of the times

Thu Oct 29 18:32:55 UTC 2020

I always tell my students that even if Darwin never came up with the origin
of species by means of natural selection, I would still teach about his
ideas. I stand by that.

James Engman

On Thu, Oct 29, 2020 at 13:25 KEVEN REED via Coral-List <
coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> wrote:

> Dear Alina & coral-listers,
>
> I concur (as I reread a U. of Arizona Press version of Charles Darwin's
> 1842 best seller,
> The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs).  No proven tectonic plate
> theory during his time, and no GPS, no lasers, no satellites, or any other
> electronic tool--remarkable deductions by Mr. Darwin.
>
> It's satisfying to have a greater understanding today of natural processes
> at different coral reef locations, but let's not sound like we are
> denigrating one of the greatest naturalists in human history.
>
> Keven Reed
> mobile: 904-505-7277
> Fleming Island, FL 32003
>
> > On 10/28/2020 10:18 AM Alina Szmant via Coral-List <
> coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> wrote:
> >
> >
> > Hi All:
> >
> > I have been too busy to weigh in sooner but have been annoyed and
> disappointed by message after message that Darwin was WRONG about
> mid-oceanic atolls forming on top of subsiding volcanoes.  Think back to
> 1820s and a twenty-something Darwin exploring the expanses of the Pacific
> ocean. Coral reefs were known to scientists as structures associated with
> one landform or another.  And there they were,  coming across huge rings of
> coral reef in the middle of nowhere.  Darwin put 2+2 together to connect
> the dots between the range of mid-oceanic volanoes with little associated
> coral, to ones like Tahiti with a narrow fringing reef and shallow backreef
> lagoon,  to formations such as Bora Bora with a few volcanic rocks sticking
> up within a huge lagoon surrounded by coral reef, to atolls with no land in
> sight. In the 1950s, mostly associated with nuclear testing on Bikini and
> Eniwetak, scientists drilled 1500 m (or ft, can't remember units, but still
> a long way down) to find volcanic rock below a huge accumulation of coral
> limestone confirming Darwin's theory of subsidence.  Also found were
> intervals of subaerial erosion and remineralization that confirmed Daly's
> glacial control theory 's modification to Darwin's theory. Darwin wasn't
> trying to explain everything geology about coral reefs: he was motivated by
> these weird unexplained landless mid-oceanic coral reefs. Remember,  there
> was no sea level curve back.then. There were no isotope dating
> methodologies back then.  There was no plate tectonics back then. Just
> brain matter and creativity.
> >
> >  In 1968 I took a term-long seminar about atolls at Scripps organized by
> faculty who had.just been or were getting ready to go, can't recall, on a
> major atoll expedition. The faculty were people like Menard, Newman and
> other notables. We reviewed all of the drilling data and other aspects of
> reef formation and had a grand time thinking about all this and how
> brilliant Darwin had been to recognize the process of mid-oceanic atoll
> formation.
> >
> >  It seems rather petty that 50+ years later scientists are writing
> papers and using such negative titles for posts as Darwin was WRONG when in
> fact he was RIGHT in the context of what he was trying to explain.  He
> wasn't addressing structures such as the 'atolls ' of the Belize Barrier
> Reef or other types of atoll-like structures that formed due to local
> subsidence and sea level dynamics. He likely didn't know of their existence.
> >
> > It is nice to see so.much recent interest in  coral reef geological
> processes on coral list because coral reef ecologists and environmentalists
> often forget to take the geological history of a site into consideration.
> But please have some sense of the scientific process in mind and how
> knowledge is the accumulation of blocks of new knowledge on top of old
> knowledge.  The new stuff wouldn't happen if the groundwork hadn't been
> laid down before them.
> >
> > I agree with posts that point out how poorly informed too many
> scientists are these days because they don't dig into the older
> literature.  I keep seeing posts and claims about the first this and the
> biggest that by people who haven't bothered to read anything that doesn't
> pop up in Wikipedia or older than 2000.  As an oldster who grew up
> academically pushed to read back to the foundational works, this is a bad
> sign of how intellectual rigor is being lost.
> >
> > Best,
> >
> > Alina Szmant
> > CISME Instruments LLC
> >
> >
> >
> > Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.
> >
> >
> >
> > -------- Original message --------
> > From: Tomas via Coral-List <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
> > Date: 10/28/20 7:38 AM (GMT-05:00)
> > To: David Blakeway <fathom5marineresearch at gmail.com>
> > Cc: Coral Listserver <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
> > Subject: Re: [Coral-List] Darwin was WRONG about reef formation
> >
> > Hi everyone,
> > Great comments by Walter and David regarding the recent atoll review.
> > Some of my most enjoyable times that I spent learning about coral reefs
> > was the times when I was reading the early works by some of the great
> > minds that came before us. Sadly we don’t see many references to these
> > great works in recent literature especially in reviews. You would be
> > surprised what you can learn from the past, and indeed some “new
> > discoveries” in coral reef science were actually discovered in not too
> > distant past buried in literature few had access to. My favourite
> > example is the early work by Sluiter (1890) who sunk 15 bore-holes sunk
> > into a fringing reef in Sumatra and found that the growth of this
> > fringing reef was initiated on soft substrate which was contrary to the
> > general assertion that coral reef initiation required a hard rocky or
> > volcanic basement. In 1931 a paper by Umbgrove (1931) actually mentioned
> > Sluiter’s 1890 study and commented that:
> >
> > “The reef has not grown on a rocky volcanic substratum or against the
> > andesitic coastal lava, but rests entirely on the muddy bottom of the
> > bay, as is also the case with the reefs in the Bay of Batavia, The
> > Thousand-Islands, and the Spermonde Archipelago.”
> >
> > However, the general assertion that hard substrate was required for reef
> > initiation lasted for decades till Hopley and Partain (1987) who wrote:
> >
> >   “Reefs have long been regarded as requiring hard substrate for
> > initiation. However, there is increasing evidence that from North
> > Queensland reefs that the presence of even a muddy sedimentary structure
> > with positive relief may greatly enhance or speed up reef flat
> > development.”
> >
> > Access to the early works has been made much easier so I would urge all
> > those that are starting their exciting careers in coral reef science to
> > reach back in time and read some of the great early works. Anyone
> > interested to get references for some of this early coral reef science
> > materiel can visit the following links:
> >
> >
> https://www.researchgate.net/publication/301883384_Tomascik_T_A_J_Mah_A_Nontji_M_K_Moosa_1997_Chapter_Six_Coral_Reef_Origins_The_Theories_In_The_Ecology_of_the_Indonesia_Seas_Part_I_pp_207-232_Singapore_Periplus_Editions_HK_Ltd
> >
> >
> https://www.researchgate.net/publication/327606240_Tomascik_T_A_J_Mah_A_Nontji_M_K_Moosa_1997_References_In_The_Ecology_of_the_Indonesia_Seas_Part_II_pp_1265-1353_Singapore_Periplus_Editions_HK_Ltd
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Tom
> >
> >
> >   David Blakeway via Coral-List wrote:
> > > Doug - Their interpretation for the Maldives is that the carbonate
> > > sequence
> > > was all produced in shallow water, over the subsiding volcanic plateau.
> > > Deposition rates varied across the plateau, some areas remaining
> > > shallow
> > > and other areas drowning. The areas that remained shallow developed
> > > into
> > > flat-topped sea-level banks during a long period of relatively stable
> > > sea
> > > level just over 3 million years ago. Atoll morphology subsequently
> > > developed over the flat-topped banks, and is therefore independent of
> > > the
> > > deeply buried volcanic substrate. I think it is a good model, with some
> > > solid supporting evidence from the Maldives. But the article would be
> > > so
> > > much better if it exercised more restraint and balance; e.g. by
> > > conceding
> > > that there may be multiple paths to atoll morphology, by acknowledging
> > > that
> > > Darwin had already suggested some atolls develop from submerged banks,
> > > and
> > > by citing previous work apparently contradictory to their conclusions.
> > >
> > > By the way, Darwin's tentative explanation of the Maldives was to
> > > slowly
> > > submerge a large elongate island surrounded by a barrier reef, like New
> > > Caledonia. The reef "*...after repeated subsidences, would become
> > > during
> > > its upward growth separated into distinct portions; and these portions
> > > would tend to assume an atoll-like structure, from the coral growing
> > > with
> > > vigour round their entire circumferences, when freely exposed to an
> > > open
> > > sea." *Referring to these sub-atolls, he later says* "...these again,
> > > during long periods of subsidence, would sometimes become dissevered
> > > into
> > > smaller atolls.*" I know it is just logic, but sure seems like magic!
> > >
> > >
> > > On Tue, Oct 27, 2020 at 3:22 AM Dennis Hubbard
> > > <dennis.hubbard at oberlin.edu>
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > >> Thanks David:
> > >>
> > >> Going back to a thread from a couple years back, this is the reason
> > >> that
> > >> extensive citing of the literature (and not just the most recent and
> > >> "hot"
> > >> articles) is so important.
> > >>
> > >> Dennis
> > >>
> > >> On Mon, Oct 26, 2020 at 10:57 AM David Blakeway <
> > >> fathom5marineresearch at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >>
> > >>> The Droxler & Jorry article provides a valuable perspective but, as
> > >>> has
> > >>> been pointed out by others, it sells Darwin short. The article claims
> > >>> that
> > >>> most modern atolls have developed over flat-topped Pliocene banks,
> > >>> and
> > >>> therefore that Darwin’s fringing reef to barrier reef to atoll model
> > >>> is
> > >>> wrong. However, Darwin already knew his model did not apply to all
> > >>> atolls.
> > >>> For example:
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>> “*...if, therefore, corals were to grow up from a bank, with a level
> > >>> surface some fathoms submerged, having steep sides and being situated
> > >>> in a
> > >>> deep sea, a reef not to be distinguished from an atoll, might be
> > >>> formed..*.”
> > >>> (Darwin 1842, chapter 5)
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>> Furthermore, the article fails to cite a recent paper that describes
> > >>> a
> > >>> fringing reef to barrier reef transition at Tahiti, reconstructed
> > >>> from 35
> > >>> logged and dated cores (Blanchon et al. 2014; open access at
> > >>> https://www.nature.com/articles/srep04997).  Such selective citation
> > >>> is
> > >>> especially disappointing in a review article.
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>> An additional problem with the article, from my perspective, is that
> > >>> it
> > >>> invokes the antecedent karst hypothesis to explain the atoll rims. A
> > >>> more
> > >>> parsimonious explanation, developed by the first scientists to survey
> > >>> atolls in the early 17th century, is simply that corals and coralline
> > >>> algae
> > >>> grow better in the turbulent and well-oxygenated water on the outer
> > >>> edges
> > >>> of submerged structures.
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>> The karst hypothesis, in my opinion, is impeding coral reef science
> > >>> because it views reefs as passive structures – it denies the
> > >>> reef-building
> > >>> organisms any agency in creating reef form. We really need some young
> > >>> ecologists to take reef geomorphology forward!
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>> David Blakeway
> > >>>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> --
> > >> Dennis Hubbard - Emeritus Professor: Dept of Geology-Oberlin College
> > >> Oberlin OH 44074
> > >> (440) 935-4014
> > >>
> > >> * "When you get on the wrong train.... every stop is the wrong stop"*
> > >>  Benjamin Stein: "*Ludes, A Ballad of the Drug and the Dream*"
> > >>
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-- 
James Engman
Professor of Biology
Henderson State University
Box 7520
Arkadelphia, AR 71999