Source: Phys.org
August 3, 2012

"A team of international scientists, including a researcher from The University of Western Australia, has found that soil erosion, land degradation and climate change pose a mounting threat to coastal reefs and their ecosystems in the western Indian Ocean.The study examined sediment and freshwater discharge over recent decades in two catchments in Madagascar's Antongil Bay and the island nation's Great Barrier Reef of Tulear, and the climatic processes that drive them.

The unique study incorporated hydrological catchment modeling as well as coral data over the past 60 years.

This was possible because Madagascar's giant Porites corals have grown continuously over several centuries at 1-2cm annually and record the changes in their environment by absorbing trace elements into their skeleton."

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