Public Release: 14-Jul-2017
Florida State University
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Scientists have long believed that the waters of the Central and Northeast Pacific Ocean were inhospitable to deep-sea scleractinian coral, but a Florida State University professor’s discovery of an odd chain of reefs suggests there are mysteries about the development and durability of coral colonies yet to be uncovered.
Associate Professor of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Science Amy Baco-Taylor, in collaboration with a team from Texas A&M University, observed these reefs during an autonomous underwater vehicle survey through the seamounts of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.
In an article published today in the journal Scientific Reports, Baco-Taylor and her team document these reefs and discuss possible explanations for their appearance in areas considered impossibly hostile to reef-forming scleractinia, whose communities are formed by small, stony polyps that settle on the seabed and grow bony skeletons to protect their soft bodies.
“I’ve been exploring the deep-sea around the Hawaiian Archipelago since 1998, and I’d seen enough to know that the presence of these reefs at these depths was definitely unexpected,” Baco-Taylor said.
Areas like the North Atlantic and South Pacific are particularly fertile habitats for deep-sea scleractinian reefs, but a combination of factors led scientists to believe that the accumulation of deep-sea coral colonies into healthy reefs was exceedingly unlikely in the deep waters of the North Pacific.
Low levels of aragonite, an essential mineral in the formation of scleractinian skeletal structures, in the region make it difficult for the coral polyps to develop their rugged coral skeletons. In addition, North Pacific carbonate dissolution rates, a measure of the pace at which carbonate substances like coral skeletons dissolve, exceed those of the more amenable North Atlantic by a factor of two.
In other words, these reefs simply should not exist.
“Even if the corals could overcome low aragonite saturation and build up robust skeletons, there are areas on the reefs that are just exposed skeleton, and those should be dissolving,” Baco-Taylor said. “Even if the species could survive in the area, we shouldn’t be finding an accumulation of reef.”
In the study, Baco-Taylor and her team articulate two potential reasons for the improbable success of these hardy reefs. Higher concentrations of chlorophyll in the areas of pronounced reef growth suggests that an abundance of food may provide the excess energy needed for calcification in waters with low aragonite saturation. Suitable current velocities in the area may also help the reefs to flourish.
But neither of these factors tell the whole story.
“Neither the chlorophyll nor the currents explain the unusual depth distributions of the reefs, why they actually get shallower moving to the northwest along the seamounts,” Baco-Taylor said. “There’s still a mystery as to why these reefs are here.”
The unexpected discovery of these reefs has prompted some to reconsider the effects of ocean acidification on vulnerable coral colonies. At a time when stories about the wholesale demise of reefs around the world are sparking alarm, these findings may offer a glimmer of hope.
“These results show that the effect of ocean acidification on deep-water corals may not be as severe as predicted,” said David Garrison, a program director in the National Science Foundation’s Division of Ocean Sciences, which funded the research. “What accounts for the resilience of these corals on seamounts in the Pacific remains to be determined.”
The reefs observed during this research occur primarily outside of the local protected Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, which means they exist in areas where destructive trawling is permitted and active.
Nicole Morgan, an FSU doctoral candidate and a coauthor of the article, said that locating these survivalist reefs is crucial because it gives scientists a chance to preserve them.
“We want to know where these habitats are so that we can protect them,” Morgan said. “We don’t want important fisheries to collapse, which often happens when reefs disappear, but we also want to protect them because they’re vulnerable, and we don’t want to destroy habitats.”
The discovery of these puzzling reefs shows that there are still gaps at the edges of our scientific understanding waiting to be filled. The success of hypothesis-driven exploration, like the kind that produced these findings, demonstrates the importance of continuing to strike out into the unknown.
“These results highlight the importance of doing research in unexplored areas, or ‘exploration sciences’ as we like to call it,” said Brendan Roark, associate professor of geography at Texas A&M University and Baco-Taylor’s co-principal investigator.
If there are additional reefs sprinkled across the Northwestern Hawaiian seamounts, Baco-Taylor wants to find them. Further study of these reefs could reveal important secrets about how these organisms might endure in the age of climbing carbon dioxide levels and ocean acidification.
“If more of these reefs are there, that would run counter to what ocean acidification and carbonate chemistry dictates,” Baco-Taylor said. “It leaves us with some big questions: Is there something that we’re not understanding? How is this possible?”
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Interesting. Manuscript of this article was co-written by Kathryn Shamberger. She authored the paper Anthony Watts posted in January, 2014, which revealed the “surprising versatility” of western pacific reefs (around Pelau) to survive lower pH.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/23/palaus-coral-reefs-surprisingly-resistant-to-ocean-acidification/
It’s expected that every article, and every author must pay her obeisances to the Great Global Warming Gods (as does this article), but, it appears to me that there are a few inquiring minds at work.
Thanks, Gloateus, for posting link to the full article:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-05492-w
Another point providing “a glimmer of hope”: as “THE END IS NIGH” alarmists now occupy every street corner (Small print on their signs reading, “Any amount will help”), their irrational alarmism has become so commonplace that it bores.
It remains to be seen, but it appears Ms. Shamberger is a researcher turning to the infinitely more interesting questions about species adaptation, rather that setting out to prove collapse of ecosystems and catastrophe for the planet.
One should destroy all coral life for the reality to fit the models. And hurry, before we all die.
This is almost as good as discovering extinct species.
IIRC those Hawaiian seamounts are the eroded roots of older volcanoes of the Hawaiian chain. As such they are made up of basalt, which is fairly permeable and moderately reactive with sea water, and there’s probably just enough residual heat to initiate a very mild convective circulation. And all the nutrients the little buggers need will be seeping out of the underlying rock. Including aragonite (which is just CaCO3)
Not so mysterious if you know a bit of geology.
And if methods of “climate science” were used in other sciences, this discovery would be eliminated because it didn’t fit the known model of deep sea corals.
The survival of the fittest in action: fight, adapt or perish.
While coral fighting can be observed even in an aquarium, why wouldn’t some natural corals choose adaptation instead?
Human society scale socialist kleptocracy experiments have been predestined to doom and the misanthropogenic fossil conservative version is no exception.
What is the size, aerial extent and depth of these reefs?
“The success of hypothesis-driven exploration, like the kind that produced these findings, demonstrates the importance of continuing to strike out into the unknown.’
Hypothesis-driven exploration? as opposed to aimless wandering about
Is this a recommendation to conduct antithesis-driven exploration? Sort of like skeptical re-analysis, eh?
Rule No.1 : Never assume anything.
Rule No.2 : Check everything.
This discovery about deep coral reefs was not the result of hypothesis-driven exploration. It was an accidental discovery. Giving up the idea that we understand ‘how everything works’ is the humble pie that precedes new and wondrous feasts of comprehensions about the natural world.
The answer to this ‘mystery’ is that the filter-feeders (e.g., the corals) are living of nutrients and primary producers seeping up through the seafloor nearby. The ocean crustal seafloor is quite permeable along cracks, and exotic fluids will leak upwards, stimulating bacteria and other primary producers to grow. This represents a local and reliable source of food, that feeds into the corals by currents along the ocean floor.
How is this about “hypothesis-driven exploration”? The conventional wisdom is “no corals here”. What hypothesis could spring from that “wisdom” that would convince someone to engage in a course of action counter to it?? Baco-Taylor was going out on a bit of an academic limb just poking around at those depths for coral, spending likely hefty sums. Kudos for that risk-taking, also to the grant providers willing to provide the backing.
“Exploration science”???? What is this new fangled terminology? What kind of hoodoo magic does it suggest? AS if scientists should consider ALL possibilities, even the impossible, especially after a consensus of “thought” has occurred!! Pfffhhhhttt!
Clearly this girl wasted taxpayer dollars and only discovered a freakish anomaly that must be ignored/ adjusted out of the record and denied because if the “prevailing scientific consensus” is that it shouldn’t be there…then it really cannot be there at all!
*warning, this post may contain high levels of snark and may be found offensive to some
“In other words, these reefs simply should not exist.”
Your blood will boil if you travel at 60 mph.
The sun revolves around the Earth.
Polynesians could never have sailed from east to west.
Piltdown Man is really real.
Bees simply cannot fly.
Clovis People are the oldest known inhabitants of North America.
Stonehenge was a site for Druid celebrations.
Dinosaurs are reptiles, no, bird like, no, their own class, no, maybe something else.
Amazing how science keeps expanding our knowledge.
“these puzzling reefs shows that there are still gaps at the edges of our scientific understanding waiting to be filled.”
Or giant holes right in the middle of our understanding.