Palmyra reef suffered in 2015

While the Stanford team failed to make it out to Palmyra as planned during the summer of 2015, the reef suffered two major hits. First there was a major storm that did physical damage to the reef. It will be interesting to see how our settlement tiles fared. There is a chance we might get a look at them before we are on site if Scripps is able to create the photomosaic from the photos it took of the reef after the storm event. It would be nice to know ahead of time what we will be facing.

Below is an example of a large table top coral that is vulnerable to storm damage.  I wonder how many of these have been toppled?

table top coral
Acropora cytherea

The second hit the reef suffered was a coral bleaching event that was the result of high water temperatures brought on by the El Nino. The good news here is the reef has been recovering from the bleaching. To see some before and after photos of bleached corals that have recovered a year later, check out the following URL:

http://sandinlab.ucsd.edu/2016/06/01/palmyra-atoll-bleaching-update-may-2016/