Here are the pics of Isle of Palms. I was visiting a friend who lives out there last summer. The area in the pics is actually Wild Dunes development (gated, exclusive, etc.) -Paul M.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Coral Reef Drowning
If anyone is still wondering what rate of sea-level rise would outpace coral reef growth, I may have found a good article to help you begin your research! Check out the abstract from Grigg and Epp (1989) for a paper they published in Science at the following web address:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/243/4891/638
They suggest that the maximum rate at which corals can grow upward is about 10 mm per year. I am sure the number may vary depending on the species, and since corals do not occupy an infinitely thin depth interval, some portions of colonies may manage to survive even more dramatic rates of sea-level rise provided they are high enough within the reef structure to outlast the period of increasing sea levels.
Other organisms build reefs as well: consider microbialite reefs and oyster reefs. Awareness of the conditions necessary for the survival of such reef communities is an invaluable tool for geologists attempting to reconstruct paleoenviroments.
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