Word: corallis
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...catastrophe." in other words, a situation in which the ecology of the earth is irretrieyably disturbed. Little mini-eco-catastrophes have been happening ever since man arrived on the scene. In the South, Pacific collectors, naturalists, and trumpeters on hundreds of islands have been picking up tritons off the coral reefs and beaches to get their conch shells. The tritons cat the starfish which prey on the coral animals that build up the reefs. Because there are now so many people on the earth, they are now picking up enough tritons so that the coral reefs are crumbling. And after...
...alarming. Once a relatively rare nocturnal predator, the crown-of-thorns suddenly began proliferating in the South Pacific a decade ago. Since then it has laid waste to 100 sq. mi. of Australia's Great Barrier Reef, the world's largest and most impressive collection of underwater coral formations. It has also destroyed nearly 22 miles of Guam's coral barrier. Marine biologists report similar starfish damage off Saipan, Fiji and the western Solomons. In only five years, says Oceanographer R. D. Gaul of San Diego's Westinghouse Ocean Research Laboratory, the starfish can destroy...
Baffling Phenomenon. Acanthaster's ravages not only occur quickly but are long-lasting. After stretching itself over the coral, the crown-of-thorns quickly digests the simple organisms that constitute the tough outer layer of the reef. Structurally weakened, the remaining skeletons are easily eroded by the ocean's waves. Once the coral barriers are breached, the islands that they surround are no longer protected from the pounding of the open sea. Because the reefs are vital to the spawning and feeding of much undersea life, the process can also destroy fertile fishing grounds almost overnight...
...protected by law in Queensland, Australia. Others propose spreading lime on the ocean floor, a technique that has already been used with moderate success to protect Long Island Sound's oyster beds from the common American starfish, Asterias forbesi. A Japanese scientist has even advised stringing wire around coral reefs to repel the starfish with a low-voltage electric shock...
...pressing hard to find better answers. So, too, are 40 marine biologists and divers from San Diego's Westinghouse Lab who fanned out across the Pacific this summer in an expedition sponsored by the U.S. Government. Unless the crown-of-thorns is restrained, many more miles of coral in the Pacific and other seas will be ravaged by the spreading starfish...