<
https://reneweconomy.com.au/reef-in-crisis-scientists-despair-and-are-reduced-to-tears-as-corals-perish/>
"All along the Great Barrier Reef countless corals lie dead and dying in pretty
turquoise waters, leaving the scientists who study them heavy with despair.
Some have been reduced to tears after visiting familiar research sites and
finding landmark corals lifeless and smothered in brown algae.
The death is so widespread in the shallow lagoons of Heron, One Tree and Lizard
islands that it’s palpable.
At One Tree Island Research Station, at the southern end of the reef,
University of Sydney marine ecologist Dr John Turnbull can smell the decay.
It’s sour and sulphurous, as stressed and dying corals release chemicals into
the water.
Colleague Dr Stephanie Gardner describes taking sediment samples back to the
lab, and finding them smelly and weirdly sticky.
“It looks wrong. It feels wrong,” the microbial ecologist says.
“It was really hard to go out that first day. We did probably 10 snorkels and I
broke down about three times. Seeing the corals like that, on their last legs,
it’s just horrifying.”
Horrifying. Horrible. Depressing. Distressing. Even catastrophic.
They’re words scientists reach for over and over again as they document the
devastation caused by the marine heatwave that swept across the reef earlier
this year, causing it’s fifth mass bleaching event in eight years."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
