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Article: Quandary Over Coral Reefs.
- Article from:
- BOAT/U.S. Magazine
- Article date:
- July 1, 2000
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2000 Boat Owners Association. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Four years ago, scientists studying coral reefs in the Caribbean Sea made a startling discovery. Analyzing meteorological records from Barbados, they noted that episodes of coral deaths coincided perfectly with those years in which high levels of airborne dust settled over the region.
The dust, it turns out, blows off the Sahara Desert and nearly one billion tons of it ride the prevailing winds across the Atlantic Ocean from Africa to the Caribbean each year. The dust contains compounds and organisms that are damaging and probably killing the living coral.
What most people think of as coral are the limestone formations secreted by tiny living organisms ...