[Coral-List] FIELD OF GIANTS

[Phillip Dustan]

Hey- Maybe it can become a bucket list dive?
Think of the tourist dollars that could be gleaned from taking the masses
to commune with the world's oldest coral?
Liveaboard dive trips could be organized around a "Tour of the Giants" like
wreck diving is now in the Florida Keys.
This could become Blue Economy heaven!
On a more somber note, we have been watching such monument corals as
indicators of reef vitality in Bali.
Slowly are seeing them "wink out" one by one, slowly but
surely..................
Phil


On Fri, Sep 17, 2021 at 10:25 AM David Blakeway via Coral-List <
coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> wrote:

> That would be an unforgettable dive.
> There's s super photo of the colony here, from the article:
> https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-77776-7/figures/3
>
> On Fri, Sep 17, 2021 at 10:24 AM Charles Birkeland via Coral-List <
> coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> wrote:
>
> > FIELD OF THE GIANTS
> >
> > Findings on the GBR usually get a lot of notice. For example, the
> > description in a recent Nature Scientific Reports (online 19 August 2021)
> > of the largest massive *Porites* colony on the GBR (5.3 m high, 10.4 m
> > wide, 31 m in circumference and between 421 and 438 years old) received a
> > lot of attention. A few months earlier (same journal, online 7 December
> > 2020), a similar article (I was *not* an author) described a scattered
> > group of seven very large massive *Porites* cf. *lutea* at the island of
> > Ta’u, American Samoa (the two largest were 8 and 7 m high, 22.4 m wide
> > (over twice the diameter of the GBR specimen) and 17 m wide (diameter),
> > circumference 69.4 and 41.0, and I heard that growth rings from a core
> > indicated the second largest one to be 540 years old), but this article
> was
> > hardly noticed. If we assume the *Porites* colonies were hemispherical,
> > which I believe is quite reasonable, then the volume of the GBR colony
> > 2πr3/3
> > is 294 m3. The volumes of the two largest in the Field of the Giants were
> > 1286 and 2942 m3, or were 4.4 and 10 times the mass of the largest on the
> > GBR. For surface area, 2πr2, the areas of the *Porites* colonies were 170
> > m2
> > (GBR) and 454 and 788 m2 for the two at Ta’u. The two at Ta’u were 2.7
> and
> > 4.6 times the area of the largest on the GBR. Twice the diameter is not
> > particularly impressive, but this indicates 4.6 times the surface area
> and
> > 10 times the mass. American Samoa is thought of as a tough and
> challenging
> > environment for corals with major crown-of-thorns outbreaks, numerous
> > cyclones, mass bleaching events, occasional extreme low tides, a tsunami,
> > and with sea level rising five times as fast as the global average
> because
> > the islands are sinking relatively (geologically) fast (Han et al. 2019
> JGR
> > Solid Earth 124: 4142-4156). Despite these harsh conditions and frequent
> > damage to coral communities, the corals of American Samoa are remarkably
> > resilient and the dynamic system deserves attention. It is good to keep a
> > log of all massive *Porites *colonies greater than 10 m in diameter, and
> > around the world, there are probably a number of colonies larger than the
> > 22.4 m diameter colony at Ta’u; but no matter how many are larger, the
> > Field of the Giants is still a marvelous sight in American Samoa.
> > _______________________________________________
> > Coral-List mailing list
> > Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> > https://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list
> _______________________________________________
> Coral-List mailing list
> Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> https://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list



-- 



Phillip Dustan PhD
Charleston SC  29424
843-953-8086 office
843-224-3321 (mobile)

"When we try to pick out anything by itself
we find that it is bound fast by a thousand invisible cords
that cannot be broken, to everything in the universe. "
*                                         John Muir 1869*

*A Swim Through TIme on Carysfort Reef*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCPJE7UE6sA
*Raja Ampat Sustainability Project video*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RR2SazW_VY&fbclid=IwAR09oZkEk8wQkK6LN3XzVGPgAWSujACyUfe2Ist__nYxRRSkDE_jAYqkJ7A
*Bali Coral Bleaching 2016 video*

*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxOfLTnPSUo
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxOfLTnPSUo>*
TEDx Charleston on saving coral reefs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwENBNrfKj4
Google Scholar Citations:
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=HCwfXZ0AAAAJ