[Coral-List] Coral reef health over time
Eugene Shinn
eugeneshinn at mail.usf.edu
Sat Mar 18 19:28:34 UTC 2023
Dear Austin and Alena, What a treat to read your reports based on good
observation and facts. Thank you so much. My experience in the Pacific
is limited. I spent roughly 2-months on the reefs at Enewetak, a week or
two on Philippine reefs, and a week on the Australian Great Barrier
reef. This was all before the seemingly worldwide decline in coral reefs
that began in the early 1980s. However, I did spend 2 and a half years
diving in the Persian (Arabian Gulf) beginning in 1965, after a cold
front (with snow) had decimated near-shore Acroporid reefs in 1964.
However, the Acroporids began recovering during those years I was living
in Qatar. What I vividly remember was how warm the Gulf water was during
summer months. It resembled a tepid bath and a vigorous swim would bring
on a head ache. Surprisingly, corals were not noticeably affected.
Apparently all that changed in later years.
My work at Enewetak involved a lot of diving and under water core
drilling in and around nuclear bomb craters created in the 1950s and
early 1960s. Coral growth along with abundant marine life was abundant
outside the craters probably because the majority of the radioactivity
went into the atmosphere and was blown away and the native population
had been removed. Any remaining radioactive metal had been collected and
buried in a crater protected by a large cement dome. I feel lucky to
have had all of those experiences before coral demise set in. However,
being a native Floridian and having learned to dive in the Keys as noted
in a previous posting I watched all starting in the 1950s and
documented most of coral demise as it was happening during the
population explosion in the Florida Keys. Gene
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