coral reef

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First Photos of Reef at Amazon's Mouth Stun

But environmentalists worry oil drilling could soon put 600-mile-long reef at risk

(Newser) - Last year, scientists made an amazing discovery under the mud and muck at the mouth of the Amazon River: a long-rumored 600-mile-long coral reef. Now the first images of the natural phenomenon are emerging, captured from a sub sent 720 feet down into the murky waters off a Greenpeace boat,...

Great Barrier Reef Lost 22% of Its Coral This Year

It's the biggest one-time die-off on record

(Newser) - This year saw the worst mass die-off of coral ever recorded at the Great Barrier Reef, with the "most-pristine" parts of the reef being hit the hardest, the Guardian reports. One 430-mile section in the northern portion of the 1,400-mile-long reef lost 67% of its shallow-water coral. All...

Scientists: Stop Saying Great Barrier Reef Is Dead

An obituary for the reef published this week may do more harm than good

(Newser) - Reports of the Great Barrier Reef's death are greatly exaggerated—and "wildly irresponsible," according to scientists. The Huffington Post reports Outside Magazine published an "obituary" for the reef on Tuesday, giving 2016 as the year it died. And while the article may have had its heart...

Huge Reef Discovered Hiding Behind Great Barrier Reef

The Great Barrier Reef just got greater

(Newser) - So, do we have to call it the Even Greater Barrier Reef now? In a study published last month in Coral Reefs , researchers announced the discovery of a massive 2,353-square-mile reef just north of Australia's Great Barrier Reef. Scientists used LIDAR data from the Australian Navy to create...

The Amazon's Muddy Waters Have Been Hiding a Massive Reef

Researchers were 'flabbergasted'

(Newser) - You don't hear a lot of good news about coral reefs these days, so the the discovery of more than 3,600 square miles of undiscovered reef at the mouth of the Amazon River is a pretty big deal. The Atlantic reports researchers in the 1970s caught a few...

Paul Allen's Mega-Yacht Blamed for Destroying Coral Reef

It reportedly dragged its anchor through a Cayman Islands marine reserve

(Newser) - An American mega-yacht is being blamed for destroying 80% of the protected coral within a 13,000-square-foot area of a Cayman Islands marine reserve, the Cayman Compass reports. The 303-foot yacht named Tatoosh belongs to billionaire Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft and owner of the Seattle Seahawks and Portland Trail...

Scientists Discover Incredible Coral Reef

In Australia, it rivals that nation's Great Barrier Reef

(Newser) - Australia already has at least one of the natural wonders of the world in the Great Barrier Reef, but it may have just added another one more than 300 feet under the sea on the other side of the continent, Mashable reports. According to a Parks Victoria announcement yesterday, scientists...

Miami Divers in Rush to Save Rare Corals

The deadline is Saturday, when excavation begins on the city's shipping channel

(Newser) - A group of scientists has until Saturday to save as many corals as time and weather permit along the bottom of a Miami shipping channel, before it is scheduled to be dredged and deepened by eight feet. With the Panama Canal in the process of being widened, the excavation project...

NJ Student Swept Out to Sea for 16 Hours

Heather Barnes cramped up while collecting coral samples in Honduras

(Newser) - A college student from New Jersey says she was stranded at sea for 16 hours while swimming off Honduras and is now safe. Heather Barnes went to collect coral samples for a project she's doing at New College of Florida at 4am Friday when she says she started to...

In Training Snafu, US Jets 'Bomb' Great Barrier Reef

Jets were forced to jettison 4 bombs

(Newser) - US fighter jets running low on fuel dropped four bombs on Australia's Great Barrier Reef last week, reports the BBC , in a training mission gone wrong. The AV-8B Harriers were supposed to drop the bombs—two of which were disabled, while two were inert—on a bombing range on...

US Navy Ship Pulled From Philippine Reef

US is facing a likely fine of $2M over grounding

(Newser) - Workers in the southwestern Philippines have removed the last major part of a US Navy minesweeper from a protected coral reef where it ran aground in January, and the damage will be assessed to determine the fine Washington will pay. A crane lifted the 250-ton stern of the dismantled USS...

Coral Reefs Gone By Century&#39;s End


 Coral Reefs Gone 
 by Century's End 
NEW BOOK
Sep 11, 2011 8:50 AM CDT

Coral Reefs Gone by Century's End

Not just pretty: end of reefs often signals mass extinction events

(Newser) - Climate change and the acidification of the oceans—along with overfishing, coastal development, and pollution—will destroy the Earth's coral reefs in as little as 30 years, reports the Independent . The mass-bleaching in the Indian Ocean in 1998 alone destroyed 16% of the world's reefs in just a...

Sunscreen Pill In the Works
 Sunscreen Pill In the Works 
Aug 31, 2011 3:02 AM CDT

Sunscreen Pill In the Works

Coral yields compound that prevents UV damage

(Newser) - Coral from Australia's Great Barrier Reef has yielded a compound that could put a lot of sunscreen makers out of business. Researchers discovered that algae living in the coral created a compound that acts as a sunscreen to protect both the algae and the coral from the sun's...

We're Headed for Vast Ocean Extinction: Panel

Human activity is rapidly wiping out marine life, panel warns

(Newser) - Human activity has degraded the world's oceans with dizzying speed and a mass extinction of marine life only seen five times before in the planet's history is likely if urgent action is not taken, a panel of marine experts warns. The International Program on the State of the...

Dead Gulf Coral Points to BP Spill

'We'll never be able to see everything that happened down there'

(Newser) - Damaged coral reefs several miles from BP's blown-out Macondo well suggests the spill inflicted far more damage on the Gulf of Mexico's ecosystem than previously thought, reports the AP. "What we have at this point is the smoking gun," says a government biologist who led a recent expedition....

Sultry Year Threatens World's Coral

Widespread bleaching expected in weeks to come

(Newser) - This year is set to be the hottest on record and scientists warn that could spell disaster for coral reefs. Reefs around the world are bleaching—expelling the algae that give them their color—on a scale only ever seen once before, in 1998. An estimated 16% of the world's...

What Tourists Can Do to Protect Coral Reefs

(Newser) - Snorkelers and scuba divers aren’t the worst threat to the embattled coral reefs of the world—climate change, commercial fishing, and pollution take top honors—but the casual tourist can lessen, and even mitigate, the damage he or she causes, Slate reports. Of course, snorkelers shouldn’t purposefully snap...

Great Barrier Reef Rebounds From Crisis

Scientists credit luck for natural wonder's 'spectacular' healing

(Newser) - Parts of the Great Barrier Reef bleached by warming waters 3 years ago have made a speedy recovery because of a few lucky breaks, the Guardian reports. Reefs typically take at least a decade to overcome human-created crises, but a combination of biological factors helped the reef's speedy healing, Australian...

Coral Reef's Slow Growth Worries Scientists

They blame climate change for trouble

(Newser) - The Great Barrier Reef isn't growing as fast as it should, and the consequences could be devastating for the vast species of marine life that it supports, say Australian scientists. A 13% decline in coral growth rate since 1990 is the first such drop in 400 years, says their report...

Fifth of Coral Reefs Dead: Study

Pollution leads to warmer, more acidic seas, scientists say

(Newser) - A fifth of the world’s coral reefs have died or been destroyed, says a study released to the UN yesterday. In it, marine scientists warned that the future of marine life and the $30 billion economic value of reefs are increasingly threatened by climate change. The report also zeroed...

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