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Earth Australia

New 60-Mile Pumice Raft Could Help Restore Australia's Great Barrier Reef (weather.com) 37

Posted by EditorDavid from the underwater-eruptions dept.
"A huge raft of pumice created by an underwater volcano is floating toward Australia, and it could help the Great Barrier Reef recover from bleaching," reports Weather.com: The pumice raft is about 60 square miles -- almost as big as Washington D.C. Scientists say it was formed earlier this month by an underwater volcano near Tonga, some 2,000 miles east of Brisbane, Australia, in the South Pacific Ocean. As lava spewed from the volcano, it cooled into pumice stone, which is full of holes and can easily float, according to NASA. As this island of stone drifts toward Australia, it becomes home to countless marine creatures, Queensland University of Technology geologist Scott Bryan told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

"There's probably billions to trillions of pieces of pumice all floating together and each piece of pumice is a vehicle for some marine organism," Bryan said. "When it gets here, it'll be covered in a whole range of organisms of algae and barnacles and corals and crabs and snails and worms." He said the millions of individual corals have the potential of finding new homes along Australia's coastline. The pumice raft "is a natural mechanism for species to colonize, restock and grow in a new environment," he said. "It's just one way that nature can help promote regeneration."

"Based on past pumice raft events we have studied over the last 20 years, it's going to bring new healthy corals and other reef dwellers to the Great Barrier Reef," Bryan told The Guardian... Bryan said pieces of pumice should turn up along Australia's coastline in seven to 12 months.
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New 60-Mile Pumice Raft Could Help Restore Australia's Great Barrier Reef More

New 60-Mile Pumice Raft Could Help Restore Australia's Great Barrier Reef

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  • I don't like the term raft here. It implies it is bound together somehow, such as a raft of seaweed. You may as well call an oil slick a raft at this rate.

    • I'm as Grammatik Nazi" [google.com] as the next pedantic /. poster, but I suppose you could even make an exception for oil, since it doesn't really bond together as much as it seeks water like a hound pup after a rabbit:

      Oil molecules try to connect to water, but hydrogen bonds connecting water molecules together remain too strong to let them in. If pulled across the surface of water, oil will stretch out to a layer the thickness of one molecule since each oil molecule attempts to attach itself to water.

  • You pumice it'll help the Reef? (Score:5, Informative)

    by rmdingler ( 1955220 ) on Sunday August 25, 2019 @06:42PM (#59123956) Journal

    Despite the reputation for death and destruction, volcanic activity [oregonstate.edu] is life-bringing.

    Finally, on a very fundamental scale, volcanic gases are the source of all the water (and most of the atmosphere) that we have today. The process of adding to the water and atmosphere is pretty slow, but if it hadn’t been going on for the past 4.5 billion years or so we’d be pretty miserable.

    • The stuff is floating... around... Do the pieces sink after a while as holes fill with water? It isn't clear to me how this is going to make a lot of difference to what is happening under the surface.

      • It's analogous to closed cell foam - doesn't fill with water.

        • It's analogous to closed cell foam - doesn't fill with water.

          It is much more analogous to open cell foam. It does eventually fill with water and sink.

      • The life forms using it for shelter and propagation will migrate to the Great Barrier Reef when their paths collide, if projections of the raft's path prove accurate.

        Article smarticle.

  • Breathes huge sigh of relief (Score:3, Insightful)

    by caviare ( 830421 ) on Sunday August 25, 2019 @07:16PM (#59124052)

    Excellent, now we don't have to worry about global climate change.
    /sarcasm

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Chromal ( 56550 )
      Yeah, this was more or less the first thing that came to my mind as well. A bandage doesn't little good when the psychopath is still tearing at the body with razors. Even if this were to help is does nothing to address the anthropogenic deteriorating ecological conditions that is quickly snuffing the life out of the reef. Until we tackle the fundamental crisis at a global level as a species, everything will get worse not better, not matter what anyone thinks, says, or does. No amount of optimism or magical

  • ...and will happen again. Given the mild BSG reference, one wonders if something similar to this was instrumental in the formation of the Great Barrier Reef in the first place. Any marine biologists and/or vulcanologists care to weigh in?

  • Not Necessarily (Score:3)

    by ytene ( 4376651 ) on Monday August 26, 2019 @07:57AM (#59125132)
    Like the authors of the original article, I'd like to be cautiously optimistic that the pumice would make a positive difference. On the other hand, look at this video footage, taken from a yacht on August 9th:-

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

    This looks to me as though the entire surface of a vast area of ocean is completely covered... which means that the water beneath the pumice will be starved of light. As the tides sweep this towards coast-lines, it is going to form something that looks a bit like an oil slick and in many ways could be as dangerous. If this blocks out light, it will kill the marine plants that depend on it to feed, including the cytoplankton that forms the lowest rung on the ladder of food that nourishes a reef.

    I'm concerned that rather than being a blessing, that the combination of this pumice raft and the ocean bleaching could actually kill off a vast area of the reef.

  • You could also use it to stonewash jeans, make parchment, chemical spill containment...

    But to hope that after 2000 miles it will land up where you want it is a bit speculative at best, clickbait at worst.

    It's not that expensive if they want to use it for the reef, after all, people buy it for their cat to crap in and then throw it away.

  • So it's like plastic then?

    In what way is this inaccurate?

    "There's probably billions to trillions of pieces of plastic all floating together and each piece of plastic is a vehicle for some marine organism," Bryan said. "When it gets here, it'll be covered in a whole range of organisms of algae and barnacles and corals and crabs and snails and worms." He said the millions of individual corals have the potential of finding new homes along Australia's coastline. The plastic raft "is a unnatural mechanism for species to colonize, restock and grow in a new environment," he said. "It's just one way that humans can help promote regeneration."

  • The coral reef is saved! Hell, the Earth is saved! You see, nature has a way of balancing things out. So, even if we humans manage to completely fark up the environment, the Earth has self-regulating mechanisms to make sure it survives and life carries on. There was nothing to worry about after all! Oh yeah, and /s, in case that wasn't obvious enough.

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