Maui Media Lab ImageryBy Jan W. TenBruggencate
3/18/2008 7:36:20 PM, The Molokai Times
A muddy shoreline can starve marine life of light — the equivalent of trying to grow a garden in a dark room.
Research on the south shore of Molokai suggests that the light deprivation can in some areas continue long after the rain has stopped, since the sediments remain on the reef, and are lifted into the water column each time the winds and currents come up.
The process is described in a new paper, “Diurnal variability in turbidity and coral fluorescence on a fringing reef flat: Southern Molokai, Hawaii,” by researchers Gregory Piniak of NOAA's Center for Coastal Fisheries and Habitat Research in North Carolina, and Curt Storlazzi, of the U.S. Geological Survey's Pacific Science Center in California.
The work is published in the Elsevier journal, Estuarine Coastal and Shelf Science.
Piniak, in an email, said that many people worry about runoff from the land into the sea only when it's happening, not recognizing that the damage can continue for an extended period of time.
“Generally runoff is thought of as a single event, like storms that deliver big pulses of sediment to the reef,” he said.
But on some leeward shores, where big onshore surf doesn't quickly dilute the muddy water and flush it out to sea, things can be different.
“On the Molokai reef flat sediment builds up over time and is constantly stirred up, so...
Read More... or Inspect High Resolution Survey, 10 March 2008 (7M PDF)
High Resolution, Low Altitude, Digital Survey of Molokai's southern shore and fringe reef courtesy, Maui Media Lab Foundation
