STUDY SHOWS MUDDY WATER IMPACTS ON MOLOKAI REEF

A group of scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey have compiled a multi-year study of the long fringing coral reef off south Molokai. The study looks at the life of the reef and the threat it faces from sediment, runoff and pollutants caused by land based activities. Scientists say the study sheds new understanding of the causes and results of a distinct band of muddy water, first reported by the marine explorer Jacques Cousteau decades earlier, that now obscures the reef nearly every day—blocking coral from light, and interfering with photosynthesis and the life of the reef.

(Posted: Tuesday, December 16, 2008) (