Corals covered the Australian desert once – maybe they’ll grow back if we screw in the right light globes?

by Jo Nova

The remnants of a long gone coral reef are not in the water here, but on top of the cliff. This is what real climate change looks like:*

Bunda Cliffs, Nullarbor, Great Australian Bight. Photo.

The whole coral reef is now 100 m out of the water | Bahnfrend |

Nullabor plain map. Australia

The Nullabor Plain.

It turns out the high plateau desert called the Nullarbor was once a coral reef. It’s a thousand kilometer stretch without a tree that’s now about 100m above sea level. Obviously it’s a wilderness that’s begging to be restored to its true Miocene glory. The question is whether we can put on enough solar panels to save this reef, or if we can melt the Antarctic and raise the oceans…

Researchers looking at satellite images spotted a suspicious looking dome and ring (below) . They figured out it was not a meteor crater but probably made of coral atoll. It’s about one kilometer across and corals built this (probably) 14 million years ago. Tectonic shifts lifted the land out of the ocean. If only the polyps had put in a carbon tax?

The Nullarbor is a bit special because the surface is well preserved. There is not a lot of rain, no rivers to speak of, humidity is low, storm surges don’t wash over it and sediments don’t settle on it. Plus the nearest glaciers are in New Zealand.

““So even though it’s exposed, it’s kind of like a land that time forgot … the erosion is so slow, [these features] get preserved for millions and millions of years, kind of capturing a snapshot of how environments were at different times.” —WA Today

Coral Dome, remnant, Nullabor Australia

Coral Dome, remnant, Nullabor Australia

Once fish frolicked in the afternoon sun among the anenome here. Now there is saltbush.

This is the kind of climate change we need to teach children at schools. Geological, not Gretalogical.

Imagine the effect if students knew almost nothing was permanent, life was adaptable, and the climate changed all the time.

Coral reef nullabor

The remnants of a 14 million year old reef

ScienceAlert:

Mysterious Reef From Millions of Years Ago Discovered in Vast Australian Desert

Most of Australia is now arid and dry, with vast inland deserts. Millions of years ago, though, during the Miocene, the continent was teeming with life; not just dense, thriving forest ecosystems, but huge inland seas.

“Through high-resolution satellite imagery and fieldwork we have identified the clear remnant of an original sea-bed structure preserved for millions of years, which is the first of this kind of landform discovered on the Nullarbor Plain,” says geologist Milo Barham of Curtin University in Australia.

The ocean that covered the Nullarbor started to dry up around 14 million years ago, exposing the shallow-water limestones deposited during the middle Cenozoic.

That means the Nullarbor is effectively a clean record of geological processes and features dating back to the Miocene.

“Evidence of the channels of long-vanished rivers, as well as sand dune systems imprinted directly into limestone, preserve an archive of ancient landscapes and even a record of the prevailing winds,” Barham says.

“And it is not only landscapes. Isolated cave shafts punctuating the Nullarbor Plain preserve mummified remains of Tasmanian tigers and complete skeletons of long-extinct wonders such as Thylacoleo, the marsupial lion.”

That’s not all. “At the surface,” adds Barham, “due to the relatively stable conditions, the Nullarbor Plain has preserved large quantities of meteorites, allowing us to peer back through time to the origins of our Solar System.”

*To be fair, mostly this is crustal plate deformation lifting the reef out of the ocean. h/t Alistair

REFERENCE

Lipar et al (2022) Enigmatic annular landform on a Miocene planar karst surface, Nullarbor Plain, Australia,  Earth Surface Processes and Landforms.  https://doi.org/10.1002/esp.5459

9.8 out of 10 based on 83 ratings

107 comments to Corals covered the Australian desert once – maybe they’ll grow back if we screw in the right light globes?

  • #
    John Hultquist

    That’s fantastic. Thanks.

    I’ll change out the old bulbs for new LEDs.
    Should help.

    180

    • #
      Scissor

      This story reminds us that our existence is but a blink of an eye. Similarly, in Northern Michigan, there is a rock called Petoskey stone that is a fossilized coral from the Devonian period about 350 million years ago. It’s a soft stone that can be readily polished to a pretty shine and pattern. The short video below shows where the rough stones are found and what they look like.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geP04peIGrQ&ab_channel=PetoskeyArea

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      • #
        Simon

        Adaption depends upon the rate of climate change. The geological record shows multiple mass extinction events where recovery took millions of years.

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        • #
          Simon

          Apologies, i meant to start a new thread. Petoskey stones are very cool, I spent a week exploring the Traverse City area many years ago.

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        • #

          Simon,
          Yes.
          Rate of change.
          Direction of change, also.
          What is the direction of change since, for example, the Holocene Climactic Optimum?
          Cooler, is it not?
          Rather then the excited yelpings of the innumerate that ‘We’re all going to die’! Because it’s nine-tenths of a degree warmer than it was in 1900. As if we know global temperature to one degree today, let alone then.
          And it is a little warmer, mostly at night times….
          In fact, we are all going to die – but not from climate change.
          And weather deaths are well down on the start of the Twentieth Century, even though there are many more of us [almost 8 billion now].

          Be well,

          Auto

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        • #
          b.nice

          Good thing that climate just happens to be remarkably stable at the moment, isn’t it.

          Albeit very much on the cool side compared to the last 10,000 years.

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        • #
          Harves

          Adaption depends upon the rate of climate change. The geological record shows multiple mass extinction events where recovery took millions of years.

          Yet every life form on the planet today survived those mass extinctions? But apparently none will survive a 1.5 degree temperature increase, eh Simon?

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          • #
            Harves

            Oh, and it’s amazing that any animal survives the huge temperature changes between summer and winter … because it’s all about the rate of change right Simon?

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        • #
          YallaYPoora Kid

          ‘Recovery’ depends on your starting point. If the earths tectonic plates and climate is constantly changing over the millennia the term recovery is meaningless.

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        • #
          el+gordo

          The Devonian extinction stands out and the key word is adaptation.

          ‘Our results suggest that the collapse of the huge Devonian reef systems was correlated with a breakdown of photosymbiosis and extinction of photosymbiotic tabulate coral taxa. Despite the appearance of new tabulate coral species over the next 35 million years, the extinction of taxa with photosymbiotic traits had long-lasting consequences for reef building and, by extension, shallow marine ecosystems in the Palaeozoic.’ (Bridge et al 2022)

          60

    • #
      Earl

      JH great bulb change to make. But relax if they don’t come on when you first test them it will probably be a power cut due to the world saving solar/wind systems not generating enough – especially if you are in California.

      110

      • #
        Lawrie

        I just read in the Epoch Times that 19 US states are following California down the rabbit hole of banning ICE driven cars. California will be lucky to recharge Segues and e-bikes let alone several million EVs. I know that California is the land where dreams come true but what about nightmares? Just so you don’t feel alone we have our very own nightmare by name Chris Bowen. He has a mate, Matt the Green Kean who also lives on Elm Street.

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    • #
      John R T

      Thank you, Joanne: Fantastic! . .
      . . and -logical
      geo-, not
      Greta-! Blessings continue.

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    • #
      Ted1.

      A small by the way.

      For those who don’t know it, the world’s longest straight stretch of railway is in that area.

      From memory it’s a touch under 300 miles without a bend.

      And thanks Alistair for explaining the lift for us.

      I wonder when was the last earthquake?

      20

  • #
    Vlad the Impaler

    Also, do not forget that at this time, average global temperatures were at least several Celsius degrees warmer than at the present time. Several posters here have shown that “65 million years of climate change” chart (I’d put it up myself, but I’m not astute enough to know how to do that).

    Seems to me that such information shows that the “doomsters” and “gloomsters” who have apoplectic fits about an increase in temperature(s) of about one or even two Celsius degrees, have virtually no scientific basis to their unfounded phobias.

    Come on, Simon! How ’bout it, Fitzy! What’s doin’, Ian? From this article, I deduce that life was thriving during these times, not all that long ago, when temperatures were well in excess of the post-1850 AD Holocene. From what I can tell, during most of the Mesozoic, a time when there were (apparently) no polar ice caps at all, life was prolific, at least according to GTS 2020, which I read, by the way, cover-to-cover. All 1400 pages of it.

    What say you?

    Regards,

    Vlad

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    • #
      Simon

      Life will adapt eventually to Mesozoic temperatures, but our current forms of food production will struggle. Be careful what you wish for. However, if net greenhouse gas emissions do not reduce to zero, then we hit the runaway greenhouse warming scenario and then everything carks it for a few million years. Check out the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) some time. We are emitting at rates that exceed the PETM by a factor of 9 or 10.
      https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2018PA003379#:~:text=The%20Paleocene%2DEocene%20thermal%20maximum%20(PETM)%20is%20a%20global,greenhouse%20gases%20to%20the%20atmosphere.

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      • #
        Harves

        Lol. “Everything carks it”.
        What, and then we started again right back with a few bits of RNA joining together again in a molecular soup. Really Simon, that’s your understanding of life on earth? Everything died everywhere?

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      • #
        Vlad the Impaler

        Simon says: ” … then we hit the runaway greenhouse warming scenario … “.

        OK, I will accept what you say about a ‘runaway greenhouse warming’, provided you tell me the concentration of carbon dioxide, within an error margin of about one percent, in parts per million that the ‘runaway’ effect starts.

        I think you mean this “PETM”, discussed on pp. 1092 to 1096 in GTS 2020, the defining horizon(s) between the Thanetian Age and the Ypresian Age, in the Paleocene Epoch. Best evidence available at the time of publication of GTS 2020 was that the CIE (carbon isotope excursion) began about 20,000 – 30,000 years after the temperature began to increase. The chart on page 1096 of the definition of the Ypresian Age clearly shows the timing and extent of the CIE.

        So, please, do enlighten us as to the concentration of carbon dioxide (within 1% of the actual value) that causes the ‘runaway’ effect to start.

        I shan’t hold my breath waiting for your answer … … …

        Regards,

        Vlad

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        • #
          b.nice

          According to some calculations, humans are unlikely to be able to push the atmospheric CO2 concentration up much passed 600-700ppm.

          This is a real pity, because plant life, which feeds all other life, functions far better when concentrations are up around 1000ppm.

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      • #
        el+gordo

        ‘ … the runaway greenhouse warming scenario …’

        A tipping point because of increased CO2. Something else may have been happening at the PETM and increasing carbon dioxide was only a sideshow.

        40

      • #
        Vlad the Impaler

        And, silly me, I forgot to mention that at the time of the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), the delta-O-18 paleothermometry indicates that the average global temperatures were six-to-eight-Celsius degrees warmer than it is right now, on 21st Century Earth.

        Vlad

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      • #
        b.nice

        “We are emitting at rates that exceed the PETM by a factor of 9 or 10.”

        Thanks for the great news, Simon ! 🙂

        Yes, and that little added proportion of global CO2 emissions has REVIVED the planet..

        Saved life from extinction due to lack of CO2.

        Plants now have CO2 the grow. REJOICE !

        And as everyone is well aware, there is no scientific evidence that CO2 does anything except boost plant life.

        ——-

        “However, if net greenhouse gas emissions do not reduce to zero, then we hit the runaway greenhouse warming scenario”

        LOL… This has to be one of the nonsensical, idiotic, anti-science, anti-reality statements I have ever seen. ie.. its total BS !!

        140

        • #
          Brian the Engineer

          In the Carboniferous age, CO2 levels were very high, and the world was full of forests. Then the atmosphere became depleted of CO2 and the forests died and the coal seams were laid down. It’s all been slowly recovering since then.

          80

          • #
            b.nice

            “It’s all been slowly recovering since then.”

            Actually, if the Vostok cores are anything to go by, its been teetering on the edge of barely sufficient atmospheric CO2 for a very long time.

            100

      • #
        b.nice

        “but our current forms of food production will struggle.”

        Wrong again.

        A slight warming would mostly affect higher latitudes, opening up vast areas that are now not available for food production.

        100

      • #
        b.nice

        Not to mention the sheer mathematical idiocy of comparing a very short term change with daily data..

        … to data with time steps in the thousands of years.

        How does that sort of pseudo-science ever get through peer-review. !

        50

  • #

    Well yeah, that happened ‘some time ago’!

    Earthquakes separated the continents of Europe-Asia and Africa from the American continent.
    So (if I’m wide awake), the water at the very high level rushed into the fault, and therefore: the level went down (gosh!).

    81

    • #
      Klem

      It’s hard to believe all of this happened merely because we released CO2 over the past two centuries, but there you go.

      But then the earth is only 6000 years old after all, right Greenies?

      20

  • #
    Jojodogfacedboy

    These numb nuts still don’t believe we’ve lost a single drop of water to space.
    It’s also generating our orbs imbalances…

    60

  • #
    Graham Richards

    Now, that’s what I call bleached!!

    150

  • #
    Will

    Ask about who destroyed the Great Inland Sea and how they did so and then wonder why we never hear about it.
    Hint: the same reason as to why only scrub and button grass grow in so many Tasmanian wilderness valleys.

    100

  • #
    Petros

    Cool. Can we at least flood Lake Eyre? Australia is too dry.

    150

  • #
    David Maddison

    It is horrifying that so many of the woke, the Leftists, the warmists, the anti-scientists and other members of the ignorati (many are all those at the same time) think that the earth system is invariant and unchanging. They know nothing of plate tectonics, Milankovich Cycles, the sun as a variable star, and other solar and galactic cycles and influences that cause the climate and geography to constantly change. The earth will always change until the sun dies and the earth freezes over in a few billion years. Plate tectonics will cease in about 1.45 billion years, long before the sun dies.

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  • #
    Ronin

    Now there’s a reef worth saving, quick alert JCU and Malcolmx444.

    210

    • #
      David Maddison

      I wonder if Turnbull realised that in Chinese the word for four sounds like death and any repetition, such as the 444 million of our taxes he gave to a small committee without their knowledge is considered an especially bad omen?

      200

  • #
    Penguinite

    Let’s see how Gretaites misconstrue this real truth of climate change!

    130

  • #
    Peter Fitzroy

    Let’s go back even further and recreate Gondwana

    28

  • #
    David Maddison

    I bet if you started a movement to save this fossil reef by building a giant wall around it and filling it with seawater you could get a large number of Leftoids supporting it.

    Mike Dice would be a good one to do this. Remember when he got a bunch of Leftoids to agree that the hunting of the Triceratops, Sabre Tooth Tiger, Woolly Mammoths and Teradactyls was outrageous especially because Donald Trump’s sons hunted them?

    https://youtu.be/Gc4Mi4ocyDw

    170

  • #
    David Maddison

    Apart from changing light bulbs, ban Vitamin D tests because they are now alleged to contribute to “climate change”.

    No joke.

    This is what passes for “science” these days.

    https://www.sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2022/08/24/cutting-down-vitamin-d-tests-could-help-lower-carbon-footprint-of-healthcare.html

    140

  • #
    Graeme#4

    As one who has lived on the Nullarbor Plain, there are a few wrong statements. For a start, it’s not “flat and featureless”. You only had to drive a few kilometres to lose sight of the buildings and even the tall towers. It only appears to be flat and featureless if you are traversing it by train, where your viewpoint is a few metres off the ground. Also not tree less – there were “dongas” or lower-lying areas full of small trees and large shrubs usually covered in a thin layer of grass, which we used as picnic areas.
    And when you are in a cave system, you can see the top hard layer of limestone capping, followed by about 10 metres of compressed mud, then another underlying hard rock layer. In the mud layer there were hundreds if fossilised shells visible.
    And lastly, small shrimp live in the surface mud layer for years without water, emerging when it rains and vast lakes form across the surface for a few days. Followed by tall waving grass and fields of wildflowers, and an explosion of wildlife.
    Truly a fascinating place.

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    • #
      Adellad

      I haven’t lived there, but I’ve visited a few times and I agree, it’s mystical and so fragile. It was only treeless to European eyes of the 18th and 19th Centuries and it is actually covered in low vegetation, as you say. To me this is real Australia, not the long thin strip of wet far eastern coast.

      40

      • #

        Graeme, and thanks for your comment. I didn’t call it featureless! I love the area myself having crossed by road 7 times, and once flown from Whyalla in a small plane to Yalata to do science shows there. I have never seen it in the rain though. I consider it a spectacular region where you can sense the curvature of the Earth almost, and the drive along the edge of those cliffs (sort of) with views to forever is very underrated.

        Curiously, as a Perth girl, when I head west not far out of Port Augusta, that’s the point I feel like I’m in familiar territory on the road to home (only 2,400 km to go!). The colors from there are the classic ochre orange, saltbush grey, and the sky the intense blue…

        Love the wedgies.

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        • #
          Graeme#4

          Actually these days Jo the Eyre Highway only touches a corner of the Plain. When you are approaching the edges of the Plain, you can see the tree line stretching across the horizon, and you actually climb up out of the Plain into the tree line.
          One of the guys raised a pair of wedgies as pets. They used to sit on my fence and wait for morsels. Saw a photo with somebody standing on one of their huge nests in a low tree – nest was over a metre across.
          Also saw a photo showing a lake that was over a metre deep after rain, with kids swimming in it. Have some photos showing the flooding that stayed around for over a week.
          Was caught out during some wet periods, resulting in two long walks, having to leave the vehicle stranded on the Plain.

          30

  • #
    David Maddison

    In present circumstances it’s far more plausible that the planet is cooling rather than warming.

    Industrial civilisation won’t survive that without coal, gas, nuclear or real hydro (not SH2) power.

    By the time the Leftoids realise this it will be too late to try and rebuild those energy generating assets they are currently systematically destroying, especially in the countries which are fanatical followers of UN decrees such as Australia.

    160

    • #
      Graeme No.3

      David:
      The end might be when the Leftoids realise they cannot have wind turbines without coal, oil and gas. Apart from gas being essential as backup for renewables there is the “small” problem of what are they going to make those turbine blades from?

      100

  • #
    david

    David
    I suggest we ban all exercise as it increases our “carbon” footprint via excess respiration. “Carbon” credits could be granted to those who wish to lie around all day. Those with smaller lung capacity could also apply for “carbon” credits. Together with banning Vitamin D tests we can help save the planet!

    90

    • #
      Maptram

      “I suggest we ban all exercise as it increases our “carbon” footprint via excess respiration.”

      That would include races which include physical activity, such as the Tour de France

      30

  • #
    Bruce

    And, coral “atolls” take the form of the undersea volcanic peak on which they formed. Corals do NOT form in deep water; not enough sunlight for the “plant” part if the beast. Nor do they form om active volcano vents; too toxic. They build reefs in that narrow environment. The trick is to build up at a rate that is commensurate with any collapse of the “cinder cone” that is commonly found around volcanic craters. We are not talking cemented Tuff here, just a big circular pile of volcanic detritus. That the Pacific Ocean, particularly in the west, is littered with atolls is a sure sign of a LOT of vulcanism over the ages. It is STILL going on as several Pacific island nations have recently discovered.The Hawaiian chain is on a different track, literally. Some day in the distant future, those rocky, tropical volcanic islands will be wave-worn stumps, somewhere nearing the Aleutians.

    The planet is a seriously dynamic system, on a PLANETARY scale. Also remember that this planet called “Earth” is seriously endowed with surface WATER.

    The area around that interesting crater was, by its very geology, once underwater. To build that thickness of LIMESTONE, there had to have been a LONG, slow and steady submersion of “land” into a warmish sea. This would have provided a steady building of coral. Now, limestone being COMPRESSED coral, the whole thing had to be BURIED by a SERIOUS overlay of other material; sand, dust, etc to the point where the mass of this overlay re-engineered the compressed coral.Some serious numbers are sure to be involved. Given the fact that the entire Australian “plate” is still steadily trundling north-west-ish, on its way to invading India. in the process it has been shoving Sumatra out of teh way, with the “hinge-point being the Sunda Strait, adorned by some volcano called Krakatau. Sumatra itself is home to a couple of Huge crater lakes. Toba, for one, clearly indicates enormous prior vulcanism. See also “Tambora”. it could get even more interesting for those around to see it. India’s own “invasion” of southern Asia has so far produced the Himalayas, so….

    The impressive underwater height of many coral structures on the Great Barrier Reef clearly speaks of huge changes in both sea levels AND plate / substrate levels. For fans of Carara marble. consider that marble is metamorphosed limestone. Thus, your bathroom floor started out as a coral reef, was buried under a vast mass od “stuff” to become limestone, then buried so deep it was “cooked” by the mantle to become marble, then tossed several thousand feet upwards above sea level during the formation of the Alps. See also the marble quarries in North Queensland; not that far above sea level, but the process was the same.

    Australia has some very interesting geology.

    170

  • #
    robert rosicka

    I’m still wondering why these scientists are so surprised given that quite a bit of our continent was once covered by water. Opals , the Leopold Ranges etc etc .

    60

    • #
      David Maddison

      I am surprised as well.

      It’s as though they have just discovered that Australia once had inland seas.

      I was further surprised by the following comment:

      That’s not all. [..] the Nullarbor Plain has preserved large quantities of meteorites, allowing us to peer back through time to the origins of our Solar System.

      That has been known at least since the 1980’s and probably a long time before that. E.g. see https://museum.wa.gov.au/research/collections/earth-and-planetary-sciences/meteorite-collection/meteorites-nullarbor-region

      It is a prime location for meteorite collectors. What next, they’ll “discover” Antarctica is also a good place to find meteorites?

      Don’t people read or have general knowledge anymore? WTF is wrong with them? We have no hope!

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      • #
        Graeme#4

        Can recall the “discovery” of the 20-ton Nullarbor meteorite in the mid-60s. Was in two large pieces, located not far from where I was living. Was found by the Carlisles, a family that roamed the outback of mid-Australia. The WA Museum only decided to come and collect it when they heard that the Americans were about to poach it. Used to have a small lump of it.

        110

      • #
        Ronin

        Also I would have thought all the limestone along the southern coastline and the limestone caves on the Nullarbor would have been a dead giveaway that it was once a seabed.

        80

  • #
    Honk R Smith

    How many climate scientists does it take to change a light bulb?
    Stupid question, what are you doing with light bulbs?

    Ok, sometimes it takes a while to work out new material.

    50

  • #
    Alistair Crooks

    I dont really like to quibble but … I dont think you can totally blame climate change for for the sea level changes on the Nullarbor Plain. The real culprit is sea floor spreading – with Australia crashing into Asia and coming to a dead halt – the northern coast line is is being pushed down by the continent still moving forward (hence all those estuaries along the north coast) while the southern coast is being thrust upwards (hence all those Tertiary-aged cliffs along the south coast.)
    Buckle your seat belt and hang on tight – its only going to get worse in the next few million years
    – something else to bed-wet over, or maybe with a enough grants the academics will come up with way of stopping that too?

    90

  • #
    Ross

    It’s why the best Climate realists have always been geologists. Bob Carter being one of the best.

    140

  • #
    TdeF

    I blame the ab*rigines and their fires releasing carbon dioxide. Some caretakers.

    90

    • #
      TdeF

      Yes, I know it doesn’t make sense. But what part of man made Climate Change does?
      And worse, this time the sea went down and the land went up. Which is even worse.

      90

  • #
    John Connor II

    How many Liberals does it take to screw in a light bulb?
    None, because they all prefer to sit in the dark and blame everyone else.
    (No doubt they’ll get their wish the way things are going)

    90

  • #
    Brian the Engineer

    This is exactly why the Pangea theory is wrong

    40

  • #
    DLK

    albo set his throne by the sea shore and commanded the sea to rise and cover the Nullarbor with a coral reef, yet, continuing as usual, the sea refused to rise and the Nullarbor remained a desert.

    50

  • #
    John B

    As Sherlock Holmes said frequently to Dr. Watson, ‘you see but you do not observe.’ That describes a geologist’s mindset. Whenever we see a road cutting, a cliff face, an island, a mountain, a beach, a plain, or, an isolated rock (eg, Ayers Rock); we want to know the full story. Included in that story is the paleoclimate, and, geoscientists are best in disproving the current dogma which pervades climatology today. Unfortunately, all I get from friends and people I meet at social functions is, ‘you’re a geologist, so what would you know about the climate?’

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  • #
    william x

    Global warming, Climate change, Sea level rise, all used as the major cause of reef decline.

    On a surf trip 12 years ago in Papua. The surf was small, so we hired a local boat and fished over a small section of the reef.
    Spent 6 hrs pulling in a few keepers to eat.

    “Are you done now?” the head guy asked?

    “Yes” in reply.

    His crew then used explosives to “catch” their fish.
    The reef hit with 3 successive shock waves. Result? Hundreds and hundreds of fish floating on the sea surface.

    A small amount retrieved. The rest left floating.

    I do not know what the state of the reef was below after.
    I couldn’t see it.

    What was once crystal clear water, that you could view thru to the colourful living reef below, had become a turgid mess filled with detrius.

    When we have the scientists and msn media claiming the loss of reefs by climate change,
    I’d suggest they try a little harder and investigate The pouring of concrete over a reef to make a military base by a major power and the fishing practices of those in remote communities that have little in wealth, governence or support.

    The article below is dated 2016. I could not video what I personally saw. This video link is close to what happened.

    https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/blast-fishing-dynamite-fishing-tanzania

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  • #
    CHRIS

    The ONLY parameter influencing coral reefs is the PH of the surrounding ocean (and whether that is > or < than 7 is a matter for natural phenonema.

    11

  • #
    AZ1971

    *To be fair, mostly this is crustal plate deformation lifting the reef out of the ocean. h/t Alistair

    So is most of global sea level rise: subsidence, not mass volume increase.

    10

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  • #
    Billy Bob Hall

    I’m inclined to think this is just a meteorite impact crater. Coral atolls are usually ‘hollow’ in the middle with the a ‘quiet’ lagoon.

    00

    • #
      Bruce

      Quick test:

      A meteorite striking the ground at 40,000Km/h will leave quite a mark, even if a small one makes “landfall”.

      There would be distinct structural and chemical changes in the coral on the impact zone. If the culprit is volcanic, there will also be major changes to the geology. I wonder if a few actual geologists ever made it to those recent Pacific eruption sites. Probably booted off the flights by the grifters and aid carpet-baggers.

      10

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    […] Corals covered the Australian desert once – maybe they’ll grow back if we screw in the r… […]

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