A 2005 earthquake off the coast of Indonesia pushed an island 1.2m out of the water, causing one of the biggest cases of coral deaths recorded, scientists said yesterday.
Researchers surveying the island of Simeulue in March found that most corals along its 300km perimeter had been partly raised out of the water by the 2005 earthquake, with the exposed parts dying off. It is believed to be the first time that scientist have documented the impacts on corals from a quake.
"The scale of it [the impact] was quite extraordinary," said Andrew Baird, of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef, who took part in the survey with scientists from the Wildlife Conservation Society.
"Exposed corals were everywhere," he said.
Baird, who said their findings would be published later this year, said exposed corals stretched from a few meters from shore to as far as 500m.
"Some species suffered up to 100 percent loss at some sites, and different species now dominate the shallow reef," he said.
More than 900 people were killed and tens of thousands left homeless in the 8.7 magnitude earthquake that hit Nias, Banyak and Simeulue islands off the coast of Sumatra.
Australian reef expert Clive Wilkinson, who did not take part in the survey, said the damage to the reefs on Simeuleu was to be expected.
"I don't think it's anything new. This has been going on for millions of years," Wilkinson said. "It's part of natural reef evolution. There are many islands in the Pacific that are actually uplifted coral reefs. It's just what happens to reefs."
"The news from Simeulue is not all bad," Stuart Campbell, coordinator of the Wildlife Conservation Society's Indonesia Marine Program, said in a statement.
"At many sites, the worst affected species are beginning to re-colonize the shallow reef areas," he said. "The reefs appear to be returning to what they looked like before the earthquake, although the process may take many years."
Baird said their findings should give hope to communities in the Solomon Islands, where concerns have been raised that an April 2 earthquake and tsunami might have damaged its reef ecosystem and in turn its diving industry.
"They shouldn't be worried about losing their dive industry," Baird said of the Solomon Islands.
"Everything still in the water will still be fine," he said.
PHISHING: The con might appear convincing, as the scam e-mails can coincide with genuine messages from Apple saying you have run out of storage For a while you have been getting messages from Apple saying “your iCloud storage is full.” They say you have exceeded your storage plan, so documents are no longer being backed up, and photos you take are not being uploaded. You have been resisting Apple’s efforts to get you to pay a minimum of ￡0.99 (US$1.33) a month for more storage, but it seems that you cannot keep putting off the inevitable: You have received an e-mail which says your iCloud account has been blocked, and your photos and videos would be deleted very soon. To keep them you need
For two decades, researchers observed members of the Ngogo chimpanzee group of Kibale National Park in Uganda spend their days eating fruits and leaves, resting, traveling and grooming in their tropical rainforest abode, but this stable community then fractured and descended into years of deadly violence. The researchers are now describing the first clearly documented example of a group of wild chimpanzees splitting into two separate factions, with one launching a series of coordinated attacks against the other. Adult males and infants were targeted, with 28 deaths. “Biting, pounding the victim with their hands, dragging them, kicking them — mostly adult males,
The Israeli military has demolished entire villages as part of its invasion of south Lebanon, rigging homes with explosives and razing them to the ground in massive remote detonations. The Guardian reviewed three videos posted by the Israeli military and on social media, which showed Israel carrying out mass detonations in the villages of Taybeh, Naqoura and Deir Seryan along the Israel-Lebanon border. Lebanese media has reported more mass detonations in other border villages, but satellite imagery was not readily available to verify these claims. The demolitions came after Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz called for the destruction of
SUPERFAN: The Japanese PM played keyboard in a Deep Purple tribute band in middle school and then switched to drums at university, she told the British rock band Legendary British rock band Deep Purple yesterday made Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s day with a brief visit to their high-profile superfan as they returned to the nation they first toured more than half a century ago. Takaichi’s reputation as an amateur drummer, and a fan of hard rock and heavy metal has been well documented, and she has referred to Deep Purple as one of her favorite bands along with the likes of Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden. “You are my god,” a giddy Takaichi said in English to Deep Purple drummer Ian Paice, presenting him with a set of made-in-Japan
RSS