Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h / t JoNova; A field expedition to investigate remote islands on the Great Barrier Reef discovered these islands in development.
Magical mangroves create a ‘green carbon’ buffer for the Great Barrier Reef
Via Liam Phelan
January 8, 2022 – 9am
The scientific field trip to a small group of uninhabited islands on the Great Barrier Reef dates back to a 1928 expedition and has implications for the reef’s future.
A team of researchers from the University of Wollongong led by Associate Professor Sarah Hamylton visited the Howick Islands, about 130 kilometers northeast of Cooktown, in the extreme north of Queensland, last year and found mangroves were growing extend.
“What is particularly interesting about many of the islands in the Howick group that we are mapping and investigating is that they are evolving,” said Associate Professor Hamylton.
“Most of the islands we looked at were mainly made up of broken up coral reefs, which then swept and accreted on the island. This layer of coral sediment is responsible for accreting the islands. Add in the mangrove forests and you can see that these islands are really growing. Some mangroves are moving forward up to 5-6 meters per year,” she explains.
Associate Professor Hamylton said the team was able to compare drone images with hand-drawn maps created in 1928 and photographs from 1974.
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This research is now more important than ever, says a graduate student in philosophy Oxana Repina.
“The fate of the Great Barrier Reef depends on how quickly we address anthropogenic pressures such as climate change and strive to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This place is one of the most diverse and iconic ecosystems on Earth. Sure, the media headlines portrayed the reef as dying or dying, but that’s an oversimplification, it’s a little more complicated than that. Let’s not yet abbreviate coral reefs. “
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Scientists have stopped short of providing an explanation for the sustainable development of Mangroves, one explanation for why the studied Mangroves seem to be growing so vigorously, but there are one Clear explanation possible.
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