Publisher's Synopsis
The Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is arguably the largest coral reef system to have ever existed on the planet. It lies off the northeast Australian margin - a passive margin, but a margin which is being gradually consumed as a consequence of Australia's inexorable drift toward the New Guinea foreland basin and the trenches to the north. Unless plate motions change, the Great Barrier Reef is a temporary acquisition.
Unfortunately, an ecosystem as complex as the Great Barrier Reef is also vulnerable to a host of threats, whether it's fishing, oil spills, or climate change.
J.E.N. Veron, the former chief scientist of the Australian Institute of Marine Science, described watching how coral was affected during what's known as a mass bleaching event: "And then I saw a whammy, a mass bleaching event ... where everything turns white and dies. Sometimes it's only the fast-growing branching corals, but some of the others are horrible to see; corals that are four, five, six hundred years old-they die, too... It's real, day in, day out, and I work on this, day in, day out. It's like seeing a house on fire in slow motion...There's a fire to end all fires, and you're watching it in slow motion, and you have been for years.
What can we do to stop this phenomenon?
