sharon sanders
Editor-in-Chief & President
November 6, 2010, 10:21 am
Coral Die-Off Took Scientist by Surprise
<address class="byline author vcard">By JOHN COLLINS RUDOLF</address>
snip
But this week, scientists piloted a submersible robot to the seafloor seven miles southwest of the well and found dozens of recently dead and dying coral communities. The site was in the direct vicinity of where large plumes of dispersed oil were discovered drifting through the deep ocean last spring in the early weeks after the spill.
Charles Fisher, a marine biologist from Penn State who is the chief scientist on the gulf expedition, told me he had expected to see some subtle effects from the oil. Instead, he found an ecosystem in collapse.
?I have seen many individual dead coral colonies over the years, but I?ve never seen a site full of dead and dying coral colonies,? he said.
Roughly 90 percent of corals at one site he surveyed were dead or dying and covered in a brown substance that he suspects was not oil but ?gooey, rotting coral tissue.?
more
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/06/coral-cataclysm-took-scientist-by-surprise/?src=mv
Coral Die-Off Took Scientist by Surprise
<address class="byline author vcard">By JOHN COLLINS RUDOLF</address>
snip
But this week, scientists piloted a submersible robot to the seafloor seven miles southwest of the well and found dozens of recently dead and dying coral communities. The site was in the direct vicinity of where large plumes of dispersed oil were discovered drifting through the deep ocean last spring in the early weeks after the spill.
Charles Fisher, a marine biologist from Penn State who is the chief scientist on the gulf expedition, told me he had expected to see some subtle effects from the oil. Instead, he found an ecosystem in collapse.
?I have seen many individual dead coral colonies over the years, but I?ve never seen a site full of dead and dying coral colonies,? he said.
Roughly 90 percent of corals at one site he surveyed were dead or dying and covered in a brown substance that he suspects was not oil but ?gooey, rotting coral tissue.?
more
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/06/coral-cataclysm-took-scientist-by-surprise/?src=mv