[Coral-List] what does this new analysis tell us???

[Eugene Shinn]

I agree with what Phil Dustan said because I watched it all while it was 
happening in the Florida Keys. I well remember the dozens of meetings 
where biologists would argue endlessly over which monitoring methods we 
should use. As a geologist It often reminded me of arguments over how 
many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Meanwhile, I was watching 
the demise of Florida corals with my own eyes. It started on live coral 
areas (named coral reefs) in the late 1970s. I do recognize and commend 
coral biologists for attempting to standardize monitoring methods so the 
data from other, and later studies, could be compared. It was a noble 
effort but using up a lot of time while the corals were disappearing. In 
many places it continued until there were virtually few or no corals 
left to measure. In addition, it was clearly obvious that the main 
causes of coral death were diseases. At the time no one was looking at 
disease. All the focus was on anchor and boat damage which was something 
plainly obvious and people were being fined for doing such damage. It 
was a little more difficult to determine death caused by disease (and 
still is) and admitting it was a bigger problem than anchor damage. 
Also, admitting the causes for demise could harm financial/commercial 
development of the of the Florida Keys. That's not a problem any more 
because they are now mostly dead. Finger pointing soon shifted toward 
climate change and sewage. That was happening about when we started core 
drilling and conducting seismic surveys. Together these approaches 
showed that most of what we call the outer reef line consisted of less 
than a meter of reef buildup over old Pleistocene age reef limestone. 
Over many miles of this outer reef line next to the clear blue Gulf 
stream there has been virtually no coral reef build up. What we had been 
calling coral reef for all those years consisted of 125,000 year old 
Pleistocene coral limestone populated by live sponges, various 
gorgonians, sea fans and scattered live hundred-year-old live head 
corals. Unfortunately, those live heads are nearly all dead now but live 
sponges and gorgonians along with Halimeda and other algae are still 
flourishing. I stopped adding to my 50-year-old coral sequence photos 
because there were no more live corals to photograph. The remaining 
mystery is why did corals not build up a reef in those areas where 
corals are lacking? We know those areas lacking coral buildup have been 
under water for at least 6,000 years. Can't blame that on sewage (there 
were few if any humans in the Keys back then and it can't be blamed on 
climate change. The good news is corals did build up reefs in certain 
areas of the keys. They are the named reefs, namely the ones with light 
houses or other markers to prevent ship groundings. Those coral buildups 
mostly grew up to the surface and are as much as 35 feet thick. These 
buildups show that sewage and climate change was not a problem when they 
were building. Drilling shows those reefs all grew on preexisting 
topographic high areas. Unfortunately those and the surrounding slopes 
are the areas where most coral death observation have been made. Lets 
all hope that the coral transplants now being placed on these areas 
survive. Don't hold your breath. Gene