WEBVTT - How Coral Reefs Work 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:02.840 Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. 0:00:03.160 --> 0:00:07.560 It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know? 0:00:08.160 --> 0:00:16.400 From house Stuff Works dot Com? Hey, and welcome to 0:00:16.400 --> 0:00:18.959 the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as always as 0:00:19.040 --> 0:00:22.320 Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and that makes this stuff you shouldn't. 0:00:24.360 --> 0:00:26.880 I just noticed your coldest cleared up. Yeah a little bit. 0:00:26.920 --> 0:00:30.840 I still have the um the an interior lining and 0:00:31.040 --> 0:00:35.920 very thick alright, um flam. Other than that, I'm yeah, 0:00:35.920 --> 0:00:38.879 you sound fine. You know what it was tons of 0:00:38.920 --> 0:00:43.239 emergency used to wash down tons of vitamin B stress, 0:00:43.920 --> 0:00:46.920 which is like tons of just different vitamin b's. I 0:00:47.120 --> 0:00:53.280 ate solar ray um and scotch right single malt Scott 0:00:53.360 --> 0:00:57.080 just my secret ingredient um and lots of licene, A 0:00:57.120 --> 0:00:59.920 couple of licenes every time, like thousands and thousands of 0:01:00.480 --> 0:01:04.440 percentages of daily value. Like just it just makes the 0:01:04.520 --> 0:01:07.120 FDA cringe that I did much. That's what I do. 0:01:07.200 --> 0:01:11.080 I just load up on like everything like triple it. Yep, 0:01:11.440 --> 0:01:13.920 there you go. Take that body, So I'm fine, good 0:01:14.640 --> 0:01:18.800 has it? Do same exact thing. And she doesn't like 0:01:18.840 --> 0:01:21.760 when I tell her to take vita minutes yeah, but 0:01:21.840 --> 0:01:25.640 that you know, you live together, you drink after one another, 0:01:25.760 --> 0:01:28.760 you suck face, just like I'll leave like an emergency. Here, 0:01:28.880 --> 0:01:32.360 they're like laying around. Oh did I leave that? That's 0:01:32.360 --> 0:01:35.840 already dissolved in the water even and it's going down. 0:01:35.880 --> 0:01:40.280 You go it, um chuck. Yes, did you know that 0:01:40.360 --> 0:01:43.800 I am a certified Scooby diver. I sure did. Oh, 0:01:43.880 --> 0:01:46.640 yeah you did. I thought for sure. You're gonna be like, no, 0:01:46.680 --> 0:01:49.200 I didn't know. We've talked about this. Yeah, we've even 0:01:49.200 --> 0:01:52.480 Scooba dive together him. That's right. That was the first 0:01:52.520 --> 0:01:54.480 time I heard about it. I'm not the sharpest tack 0:01:54.560 --> 0:01:58.240 in the package. Um, but I say that to tell 0:01:58.280 --> 0:02:01.720 you that I was certified at a place called Isla 0:02:01.800 --> 0:02:05.760 Mueris off the coast of Cosumel, which just so happens 0:02:05.840 --> 0:02:08.720 to also be the home of the second largest barrier 0:02:08.760 --> 0:02:13.600 reef known to man. What's it called to humans? I 0:02:13.639 --> 0:02:17.359 don't know. It's not called anything, because there's the great 0:02:17.400 --> 0:02:19.440 barrier reef and then there's all the other all the 0:02:19.440 --> 0:02:22.080 other ones. But this is the second largest, which is 0:02:22.080 --> 0:02:24.679 pretty big because there's a lot of barrier reefs, there's 0:02:24.680 --> 0:02:28.440 a lot of coral reefs, in the world. But after 0:02:28.720 --> 0:02:31.680 reading this article, I found that there is a lot 0:02:31.720 --> 0:02:36.000 about coral reefs that I didn't know. Fortunately, we had 0:02:36.400 --> 0:02:40.200 Jennifer Horton, who I'm sure you'll remember, worked at the 0:02:40.240 --> 0:02:42.040 site for a while. Yeah, she's a great writer. He's 0:02:42.160 --> 0:02:44.680 great writer. We had. We had her to explain it 0:02:44.720 --> 0:02:47.840 to us, and like, I get coral reefs now. In fact, 0:02:47.919 --> 0:02:52.520 Jennifer has written many of the animal related podcasts that 0:02:52.560 --> 0:02:57.959 we've done. Um, Bison, I think maybe that probably wrote 0:02:57.960 --> 0:03:01.160 a lot of the animals animal migration. Yeah, lots of 0:03:01.200 --> 0:03:02.760 good ones. To miss you, Jennifer. I hope you're well. 0:03:02.800 --> 0:03:06.320 If you listen, I wonder who are they? Right, remember 0:03:06.320 --> 0:03:09.720 those guys I hated those two all right, coral reefs. 0:03:10.000 --> 0:03:12.600 This was all new to me. The rainforests of the 0:03:12.639 --> 0:03:18.360 Sea of the Equatorial seeds home to about of all 0:03:18.919 --> 0:03:23.679 this species. Yeah, that's crazy. In fact, right, um, the 0:03:23.800 --> 0:03:29.239 Great Barrier reef has more more kinds of coral um 0:03:29.400 --> 0:03:32.280 on like one, just single little outcropping of it. Then 0:03:32.320 --> 0:03:36.360 you'll find in the entire tropical area of the Atlantic Ocean. Wow. Yeah, 0:03:36.600 --> 0:03:39.160 that's amazing. I don't know why I just said that. 0:03:39.200 --> 0:03:41.600 There the Aussies are gonna they're gonna be so stoked 0:03:41.600 --> 0:03:44.240 with this podcast. Probably anytime they can like claim to 0:03:44.320 --> 0:03:48.840 something like that, they're just like, yeah, yeah, drink exactly. 0:03:49.040 --> 0:03:52.920 They're gonna go poor beer on the Great Barrier reef. Um. 0:03:52.920 --> 0:03:55.840 It's the coral reefs are very beneficial to humans in 0:03:55.880 --> 0:04:00.520 a number of ways. Economically, sure, because there's a lot 0:04:00.520 --> 0:04:04.400 of sea life and bus people fishing for shrimp and 0:04:04.440 --> 0:04:06.520 lobster and things like that, right in all sorts of 0:04:06.560 --> 0:04:09.360 weird ways which will get too later. Um. They also 0:04:09.520 --> 0:04:13.920 protect the beach from erosion. They act as natural buffers 0:04:13.960 --> 0:04:19.920 from huge waves wave action. That's right. Yeah, well let's 0:04:19.920 --> 0:04:21.720 talk about that because you think of when you think 0:04:21.760 --> 0:04:25.520 of coral, you think of huge you know, great barrier reef. 0:04:25.560 --> 0:04:28.760 It's enormous. It's like, um, I think there's eighteen thousand 0:04:28.839 --> 0:04:35.719 miles of coral face face on a Great Barrier reef. Actually, 0:04:35.880 --> 0:04:39.680 an individual coral called a polyp um, is about three 0:04:39.720 --> 0:04:44.440 millimeters long. Yeah that's small, super tiny for those of 0:04:44.440 --> 0:04:48.240 you in America. Uh, they are, Well, science got it 0:04:48.240 --> 0:04:49.960 wrong early on. We should go ahead and say that 0:04:50.040 --> 0:04:55.960 they um at one point fairly understandably thought that it 0:04:56.080 --> 0:04:59.479 might be plant life because it sort of looks like it. Yeah, 0:04:59.520 --> 0:05:03.400 like you know, like the coral fan. Yeah, that's a 0:05:03.480 --> 0:05:07.080 bunch of those little three millimeter corals building up into 0:05:07.120 --> 0:05:08.960 a fan. It looks like it looks like a plant. 0:05:09.360 --> 0:05:11.440 So they got it wrong. And they're actually not only 0:05:11.480 --> 0:05:16.240 are they real living little sea creatures, but they're carnivores, yeah, 0:05:16.440 --> 0:05:18.600 which is you know, you would never think about that. No, 0:05:18.839 --> 0:05:26.040 but they're in the phylum Sinidaria nari. Why would they 0:05:26.080 --> 0:05:28.719 put the sea there? It's silent, man, you know, I 0:05:28.720 --> 0:05:31.680 appreciate a silent letter. I am smarter than my pronunciations 0:05:31.720 --> 0:05:35.000 would suggest. I started looking this up because I feel 0:05:35.040 --> 0:05:37.400 like an idiot. So they're in the philo of Nidaria, 0:05:37.480 --> 0:05:42.679 which means, um that they have stinging cells, barbed stinging cells, 0:05:43.400 --> 0:05:46.839 um called nematicist that's right. So um they use this 0:05:46.960 --> 0:05:49.480 to catchure their prey. But the prey kind of has 0:05:49.520 --> 0:05:52.400 to come to them because they're also sessile, which means 0:05:52.400 --> 0:05:59.240 they're fixed to a certain spot. Seriously. Yeah, uh So 0:05:59.360 --> 0:06:01.280 it is understand enable also that they got it wrong 0:06:01.320 --> 0:06:06.200 because coral has a unique property. It is almost half 0:06:06.279 --> 0:06:12.000 plant because there's this algae in the cells Okay, go ahead. 0:06:12.600 --> 0:06:17.320 It's called zus anthony, you're right, very nice. Starts with 0:06:17.360 --> 0:06:20.760 a Z and there's an X in there somewhere. And 0:06:22.000 --> 0:06:25.320 so what happens with there's a very mutually beneficial relationship 0:06:25.400 --> 0:06:29.920 between the algae and the polyp. They do a little exchange. 0:06:31.240 --> 0:06:35.480 The polyp itself will supply I'm sorry, the algae will 0:06:35.520 --> 0:06:39.600 undertake photosynthesis as algae tends to do. As algae will do, 0:06:39.720 --> 0:06:42.880 and it will say, hey, mr polyp, why don't you 0:06:42.960 --> 0:06:47.520 take all this stuff that i've I've made within your 0:06:47.520 --> 0:06:51.080 cell walls and and convert it to proteins and fats 0:06:51.279 --> 0:06:55.360 like amino acid and cars and in return, why don't 0:06:55.400 --> 0:06:59.400 you give me a nice shelter. And you can also 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:03.680 use some carbon and nitrates and both fates that I 0:07:03.720 --> 0:07:06.800 need to produce the photosynthesis to give you the proteins 0:07:06.800 --> 0:07:09.400 and fats that you need. So it's what you might 0:07:09.480 --> 0:07:13.880 call a symbiotic relationship. One's helping the other. And um, 0:07:13.960 --> 0:07:16.720 you can make the case that the coral is getting 0:07:16.760 --> 0:07:20.280 the better end of the deal because coral gets about 0:07:20.840 --> 0:07:27.600 the energy produced through photosynthesis by the zoos anthely right. Um, 0:07:27.640 --> 0:07:30.520 But that also makes the coral more dependent on the 0:07:30.600 --> 0:07:35.120 zuos anthely, and the zoos anthely is a algae very 0:07:35.160 --> 0:07:38.240 little needs. It's not needy, it's not grabby. It's not 0:07:38.320 --> 0:07:41.000 gonna call you up every Friday night wondering what you're doing, 0:07:41.200 --> 0:07:45.280 Why you aren't here? Are you talking about me? No? No, 0:07:46.160 --> 0:07:51.000 jerry like that one. So um. The the symbiotic relationship 0:07:51.040 --> 0:07:54.560 between the zux anthely and the coral polyps also produce 0:07:55.080 --> 0:07:59.160 coral reefs. Um. The polyps use some of that energy, 0:07:59.520 --> 0:08:03.840 some of that amino acid to create something called calcium carbonate. 0:08:04.760 --> 0:08:08.480 And that's the hard stuff. Right, that's limestone, my friend. Yeah. 0:08:08.520 --> 0:08:12.200 They produce limestone out of their butt hawks to create 0:08:12.280 --> 0:08:15.480 a cup, a little shelter for the polp to stay in. 0:08:15.720 --> 0:08:17.960 And since the algae stays in the polyp, it creates 0:08:17.960 --> 0:08:21.960 a shelter for both. Right. Yeah, And this limestone secretion 0:08:21.960 --> 0:08:26.120 can keep building and building and building because again, coral 0:08:26.160 --> 0:08:30.960 stays in the same place there cecile. That's right. And um, 0:08:31.240 --> 0:08:34.559 as as long as they're still secreting limestone, the limestone 0:08:34.600 --> 0:08:37.120 structure they build will just keep getting bigger and bigger. 0:08:37.120 --> 0:08:42.160 Eventually that's just one three millimeter long coral yes, what 0:08:42.240 --> 0:08:46.040 you want to do is get thousands together strengthen numbers. 0:08:46.520 --> 0:08:49.760 Then you have a coral fan yeah, or a colony, 0:08:50.040 --> 0:08:52.480 and then those colonies will eventually meet up with other 0:08:52.520 --> 0:08:56.760 colonies uh, and say, hey, you guys interested in forming 0:08:56.760 --> 0:09:01.360 a wreath because we're pretty indestructible. Although that's not quite true. 0:09:01.800 --> 0:09:04.920 We're more indestructible if we all hook up my brothers, 0:09:05.040 --> 0:09:08.240 like you said, strengthened numbers. And when they hook up, 0:09:08.679 --> 0:09:14.640 their limestone secretions can start to join together forming a reef. 0:09:15.040 --> 0:09:20.480 But they're also um connected by a thin piece of tissue. 0:09:20.840 --> 0:09:24.800 You got this one called a sin a sark. That's 0:09:24.800 --> 0:09:26.320 what I was gonna go for. I was just tired 0:09:26.360 --> 0:09:28.720 of humiliating myself for this episode. I would have called 0:09:28.720 --> 0:09:31.079 it a kna sark, So I was a way off. 0:09:31.080 --> 0:09:33.920 I'm really glad that Celia can. It's a scene of 0:09:33.960 --> 0:09:39.800 sark um and that's how the the coral themselves are 0:09:40.360 --> 0:09:43.640 through limestone secretions and through this tissue called the senu sark. 0:09:43.679 --> 0:09:47.600 They're connected. But how would they grow? Well, there's two ways, man, 0:09:48.480 --> 0:09:52.640 they can reproduce. Yeah, a couple of ways. So right, 0:09:53.120 --> 0:09:58.000 it's sexually or a sexually I know which one I choose. 0:09:59.800 --> 0:10:04.280 A sexual yeah, because you're cloning. That's pretty remarkable. Anyone 0:10:04.320 --> 0:10:07.920 can just get together and you know mate. Right. Sexually, 0:10:07.960 --> 0:10:11.520 it's like here's some sperm in another one's like here's 0:10:11.520 --> 0:10:15.440 some eggs, and then they get together and then it's 0:10:15.480 --> 0:10:18.560 just no, there's not much to it right A. Sexually, though, 0:10:18.600 --> 0:10:21.599 they actually do divide and produce identical clones of themselves, 0:10:22.240 --> 0:10:25.520 and that's one way they can grow. And the other 0:10:25.520 --> 0:10:29.160 way is just to keep pooping out limestone and that 0:10:29.480 --> 0:10:31.160 will connect with each other and it just forms a 0:10:31.160 --> 0:10:34.480 big o yummy wreath. Yeah. Um. This is not a 0:10:34.480 --> 0:10:37.480 fast process though. Like if there's a couple of coral 0:10:37.559 --> 0:10:41.160 that are a few inches away, say three inches away, 0:10:41.800 --> 0:10:44.760 and they're like, I would like to hook my sineu 0:10:44.840 --> 0:10:46.839 sark up to your sin a sark and let's poop 0:10:46.880 --> 0:10:49.720 some limestone up together and get this reef going. That's beautiful. 0:10:49.800 --> 0:10:51.960 It's gonna take them about a year to get together. 0:10:52.080 --> 0:10:54.480 Can you imagine how frustrating that is to be three 0:10:54.480 --> 0:10:57.040 inches away and be like, I'd really like to consummate this. 0:10:57.520 --> 0:10:59.920 I'll see you next June. I'm not convinced that coral 0:11:00.000 --> 0:11:03.200 can experience frustration. You don't think so, I don't. I 0:11:03.240 --> 0:11:07.000 think that's all the experience frustration either they or they're 0:11:07.040 --> 0:11:10.320 like really really patient. But that three inches of growth 0:11:10.360 --> 0:11:15.239 a year um has to take place under very specific conditions. 0:11:15.679 --> 0:11:20.640 Remember we said that coral reefs are in equatorial waters. Um, 0:11:20.760 --> 0:11:25.640 not the coral themselves, but the zooxanthely are actually very 0:11:25.640 --> 0:11:30.200 fickle and picky little organisms, and they like specific conditions, 0:11:30.600 --> 0:11:32.400 and as long as the conditions are right for them, 0:11:32.559 --> 0:11:35.600 then the coral can grow because remember the coral are 0:11:35.640 --> 0:11:40.079 dependent on the zaxanthely to produce the calcium carbonate. That's right, Um, 0:11:40.120 --> 0:11:43.360 So what are the conditions chuckers? Well, you said equatorial 0:11:43.600 --> 0:11:47.240 specifically thirty degrees north or south. If you have ever 0:11:47.800 --> 0:11:50.800 dived in the Bahamas and said, no, that's thirty two 0:11:50.800 --> 0:11:54.240 degrees north and they have plenty there. It's because the 0:11:54.280 --> 0:11:58.319 warm Gulf waters spitting out towards the Bahamas, which is 0:11:58.360 --> 0:12:00.679 one reason the Bahamas is such a fielder spot. I 0:12:00.720 --> 0:12:04.400 would imagine, yes, I've never been there. You no, my 0:12:04.520 --> 0:12:08.560 folks drove my car back from the Bahamas. Though once 0:12:08.960 --> 0:12:11.599 you had a car in the Bahamas, you're supposed to 0:12:11.640 --> 0:12:14.280 say you're kidding, You're kidding. I must be the Bahamas 0:12:14.320 --> 0:12:17.839 or islands. It's a it's a dead milkman song. It's 0:12:17.880 --> 0:12:21.240 pitching camaro Oh that's from Batne Camara. Yeah, it's the beginning. Geez, 0:12:21.280 --> 0:12:24.880 I'm a dummy. That's alright, Chuck, I'm not hip. I'm 0:12:24.920 --> 0:12:27.960 not hip either, Chuck. Sunlight is another thing that they 0:12:28.000 --> 0:12:31.040 need because, and it makes sense if you're gonna undertake 0:12:31.080 --> 0:12:33.920 photo synthesis, you need sun. So if the water is 0:12:34.679 --> 0:12:37.319 rich in nutrients, believe it or not, that's not great 0:12:37.360 --> 0:12:39.880 for them. No, because if you've ever looked through if 0:12:39.880 --> 0:12:42.080 you've ever been underwater and seen like a lot of 0:12:42.120 --> 0:12:45.920 plankton everywhere, it filters the sunlight, it's dappled, that's right. 0:12:46.280 --> 0:12:50.120 And also, as we learned later, um, the more nutrients 0:12:50.160 --> 0:12:53.480 there are, the more it will attract uh competition for 0:12:53.480 --> 0:12:55.800 those nutrients, and that's not good for me either. No, 0:12:55.960 --> 0:12:59.280 they don't like competitions. Basically, there's this little prima donnas 0:13:00.200 --> 0:13:04.840 this example. They are the water, since you're near the equator, 0:13:05.240 --> 0:13:09.040 should be between seventy three point four and eighty four 0:13:09.080 --> 0:13:13.000 point two degrees fahrenheit, and I ultimately, if you put 0:13:13.040 --> 0:13:16.320 all these factors together ample like clear water, and between 0:13:16.360 --> 0:13:18.960 seventy three and eighty two or twenty three celsius and 0:13:19.000 --> 0:13:21.920 twenty nine celsius um, you can get up to about 0:13:21.960 --> 0:13:24.640 ten centimeters or three point nine inches of growth in 0:13:24.679 --> 0:13:27.640 a year, twice as much on sunny days. Yeah, this 0:13:27.760 --> 0:13:30.120 is remarkable, but they're still not going to exceed that 0:13:30.200 --> 0:13:34.160 three point nine inches most likely it's not all the time. 0:13:34.240 --> 0:13:36.959 But what's cool then is if you think, well, that's crazy. 0:13:37.040 --> 0:13:40.920 You know there's some coral that. Um. I've seen coral 0:13:40.960 --> 0:13:43.920 reefs and they're big. And if it takes three point 0:13:44.240 --> 0:13:48.000 it takes a year to grow about three point nine inches, 0:13:48.480 --> 0:13:52.600 say horizontally or vertically, maybe even die diagonally. If it 0:13:52.679 --> 0:13:56.200 was like a crazy year for them, Um, it must 0:13:56.200 --> 0:13:58.600 take thousands of years for coral reefs to build up. 0:13:58.920 --> 0:14:02.320 You would be right, my friend, Which is why scientists 0:14:02.520 --> 0:14:06.960 very affectionately consider coral reefs the old growth forests of 0:14:06.960 --> 0:14:10.120 the sea. Um. Because when you're looking at coral reef, 0:14:10.160 --> 0:14:12.560 you're looking at something thousands, if not tens of thousands 0:14:12.600 --> 0:14:15.800 of years old, which my question is how long does 0:14:15.880 --> 0:14:18.560 the coral live? So one thing I didn't get out 0:14:18.559 --> 0:14:22.720 of this this article. Did you, oh, how each individual coral, 0:14:23.080 --> 0:14:25.640 each polypic, Well, I don't know. And are they are 0:14:25.680 --> 0:14:30.120 there their cups, the protective cups that they secrete. Um, 0:14:30.240 --> 0:14:34.640 are they inhabited by like successive generations, their clones? Maybe? 0:14:35.840 --> 0:14:37.880 My guess, and I'm guessing here, is that there are 0:14:37.880 --> 0:14:41.920 so many, hundreds of thousands and millions of these so 0:14:42.080 --> 0:14:44.960 tightly together that if one of the little guys dies, 0:14:45.920 --> 0:14:48.600 it ain't no big thing because he's surrounded by his 0:14:48.680 --> 0:14:51.680 living brothers and sisters. But I don't know how long 0:14:51.680 --> 0:14:54.640 each one lives though this good question. Someone will know. 0:14:56.040 --> 0:14:58.600 Coral sand. If you look at the reef and you think, hey, 0:14:58.680 --> 0:15:02.000 coral is obviously the skeleton in here of this great reef. Uh, 0:15:02.120 --> 0:15:06.160 it's not just the coral. Coral sand, from what I understand, 0:15:06.400 --> 0:15:10.200 is little remnants, tiny pieces of coral that are either 0:15:10.400 --> 0:15:14.520 eaten and pooped out or just chipped away because of 0:15:14.680 --> 0:15:18.320 erosion and waves crashing and bad weather and stuff like that. 0:15:18.680 --> 0:15:21.080 Is that right? Yeah? And um? But the cool thing 0:15:21.120 --> 0:15:23.320 is that it doesn't necessarily go anywhere. It can fill 0:15:23.400 --> 0:15:28.120 in gaps or holes and then, as luck would have it, 0:15:28.840 --> 0:15:33.760 there is a type of algae called coral line algae 0:15:34.120 --> 0:15:36.960 that goes and covers it up, and the structure of 0:15:37.000 --> 0:15:40.160 the algae acts is like an adhesive that glues the 0:15:40.200 --> 0:15:46.000 coral sand. So basically it's like this self sustaining repair 0:15:46.120 --> 0:15:49.160 process that's always going on the waves of road the 0:15:49.200 --> 0:15:51.800 coral into coral sand. Certain types of fish choose the 0:15:51.840 --> 0:15:54.880 coral into coral sand. The saying goes in just drifts 0:15:54.920 --> 0:15:56.840 into like little pockets where it gets caught in the 0:15:56.880 --> 0:16:00.760 algae lays over it bam strong. Coral and coral sand 0:16:00.840 --> 0:16:03.840 is mind which is one of the threats to reefs 0:16:03.880 --> 0:16:07.760 because they use it for bricks and cement and roadville. 0:16:08.040 --> 0:16:10.120 So if you're mining the coral sand, there's not gonna 0:16:10.120 --> 0:16:13.520 be that natural spackle to fill in the holes, and 0:16:13.600 --> 0:16:17.160 thus the reef is jeopardized, which is just one of 0:16:17.200 --> 0:16:20.800 many ways that research in jeopardy. Apparently one estimate is 0:16:20.840 --> 0:16:25.200 that um of the world's reefs could be gone in 0:16:25.240 --> 0:16:29.400 the next few decades. That's scary, very sad. I hope 0:16:29.440 --> 0:16:33.520 you're scared. I'm scared. Um. This is where I got 0:16:33.560 --> 0:16:36.320 a little confused. Was well, let's talk about the kinds 0:16:36.360 --> 0:16:39.640 of reefs, because I'm not confused about that There are 0:16:39.720 --> 0:16:44.240 basically three categories, depending where they form. The fringing reef 0:16:44.400 --> 0:16:48.880 it's most common it's directly from the shore and they 0:16:48.920 --> 0:16:51.560 form a border projecting out to the sea. Yeah. It's 0:16:51.640 --> 0:16:54.040 kind of like, um, if you go to like marble 0:16:54.040 --> 0:16:57.880 Head in Ohio, there's a lighthouse. Yeah, um, I think 0:16:57.960 --> 0:17:01.320 it's limestone. It's like it just comes it off the land, right. 0:17:01.680 --> 0:17:03.600 I don't understand how that would be because it's in 0:17:03.720 --> 0:17:06.160 Lake Erie, which is not fresh water, but who knows. 0:17:06.800 --> 0:17:09.240 It's very similar to that. It's like just a rocky 0:17:09.280 --> 0:17:12.720 projection jutting out from the land. But it's a coral reef, right, 0:17:12.960 --> 0:17:15.120 or if it were a coral reef, that's a fringing 0:17:15.160 --> 0:17:19.960 reef reef attached to land. Barrier reef, very similar to 0:17:20.040 --> 0:17:24.520 the fringing reef, but it has a gap of water 0:17:24.680 --> 0:17:28.280 between the land and in the reef. Correct. And then 0:17:28.320 --> 0:17:31.240 my favorite, of course, the atoll. It's a nice one, 0:17:31.359 --> 0:17:34.000 which is when at one point there was an island 0:17:34.119 --> 0:17:37.720 or volcano and it sunk, but you still have the 0:17:37.760 --> 0:17:42.800 circular wreath reef with I guess like a lagoon or something. Yeah, 0:17:42.840 --> 0:17:46.639 the reefs keeps building, but the mountain is now submerged. 0:17:46.840 --> 0:17:49.960 Pretty cool. Yeah, so you got your three types fringing 0:17:50.000 --> 0:17:52.280 barrier and at all. Right, the zones is where I 0:17:52.280 --> 0:17:55.360 get a little confused. So all of these reefs um 0:17:55.480 --> 0:17:59.080 are kind of broken down into zones. Like remember the biospheleology. 0:17:59.400 --> 0:18:00.960 How could I forget? Okay, So you've got like the 0:18:01.000 --> 0:18:06.320 different zones. It's very similar to that. You've got the 0:18:05.560 --> 0:18:09.520 um back of the reef, and the back is the 0:18:09.600 --> 0:18:14.760 side closest to shore. I think that's what's a little confusing. 0:18:14.840 --> 0:18:17.399 But it's from the it's from the viewpoint of the 0:18:17.440 --> 0:18:22.439 seed um. So you've got just imagine like a line 0:18:22.600 --> 0:18:25.200 and then a bump and then another line, and that's 0:18:25.200 --> 0:18:29.800 our reef right um on the shore side of the bump, 0:18:29.880 --> 0:18:31.800 that's the back of the reef. And this is actually 0:18:31.800 --> 0:18:35.920 where the most life is. Yeah. Um. Sometimes it's left 0:18:35.960 --> 0:18:38.080 high and dry by low tide, but most times it's 0:18:38.080 --> 0:18:41.719 just this little shallow area that's got tons of sunlight. 0:18:41.760 --> 0:18:44.600 So there's tons of plankton, which means there's tons of fish. 0:18:45.080 --> 0:18:49.159 There's a feeding frenzy, there's diurnal temperature changes. It's just 0:18:49.280 --> 0:18:52.280 very pretty. It's what most people think of when they 0:18:52.320 --> 0:18:56.680 think about diving. On a coral reef. Right. Then that 0:18:56.760 --> 0:19:01.520 bump that's the ridge or the crest o um. That 0:19:01.640 --> 0:19:07.240 part the the crest is always exposed at low tide, 0:19:07.880 --> 0:19:10.560 and it may be exposed even at high tide sometimes 0:19:10.560 --> 0:19:13.840 depending on how big. But it's the tallest point. It 0:19:13.920 --> 0:19:17.160 also um serves as the wave break for that function 0:19:17.320 --> 0:19:20.639 of um reefs that protect the land. This is what 0:19:20.720 --> 0:19:23.679 the waves smack into, so it's gonna be more easily 0:19:23.720 --> 0:19:28.359 eroded and probably have more of that natural speckle. Right. Yes, 0:19:28.480 --> 0:19:33.560 that was it coralline algae. Probably that was called cora 0:19:33.680 --> 0:19:37.440 line yeah or coraline whichever, however you want to say it. 0:19:37.800 --> 0:19:40.520 I'm not gonna stress you out, all right, um. And 0:19:40.560 --> 0:19:44.720 then there's the four reef that's the the ocean side, 0:19:44.720 --> 0:19:48.639 the seaside, right um. And in that part of the 0:19:48.800 --> 0:19:50.560 of the four we find the other side of the crest, 0:19:50.640 --> 0:19:53.720 the seaside of the crest. There's the buttress zone, which 0:19:53.760 --> 0:19:55.600 is awesome if you ask me. And that's where you're 0:19:55.600 --> 0:19:58.359 gonna find if you're shark hunting, that's where you're gonna 0:19:58.359 --> 0:20:00.919 find like sharks and barracuda and sing things like that. Right, 0:20:01.720 --> 0:20:03.879 but does it buttress is that why they call the 0:20:03.880 --> 0:20:06.439 buttress n So the buttress, consider a buttress is just 0:20:06.480 --> 0:20:11.520 like a jutting projection of coral limestone, right, just jutting out, 0:20:11.840 --> 0:20:14.639 and then in between these projections are little channels holes 0:20:14.680 --> 0:20:17.760 that can go all the way through. Right. I'm not 0:20:17.880 --> 0:20:20.119 quite sure what the physics are of it, but basically, 0:20:20.760 --> 0:20:23.400 once a wave goes through this coral reef and hits 0:20:23.440 --> 0:20:26.960 short and then gets drawn back out to see these channels, 0:20:27.400 --> 0:20:32.439 UM funnel these spent waves back out to sea, and 0:20:32.480 --> 0:20:36.479 by funneling them it gives them a more energy, so 0:20:36.520 --> 0:20:40.200 then they crash into oncoming waves, which reduces the oncoming 0:20:40.200 --> 0:20:43.280 waves velocity. So all this is is in an attempt 0:20:43.800 --> 0:20:48.480 naturally to combat the erosion of pounding waves. Yes, a yeah, 0:20:48.480 --> 0:20:51.600 it's pretty cool UM. And it's also a really excellent 0:20:52.240 --> 0:20:56.359 UM shelter for little fish ees and things like that 0:20:56.359 --> 0:20:59.520 they want to go into the channel. So, Josh, we've 0:20:59.520 --> 0:21:03.360 talked about the Great Barrier reef uh here and there, 0:21:03.960 --> 0:21:06.720 but we should give it its proper do. As the 0:21:06.840 --> 0:21:10.560 largest living structure on the planet seen from outer space. 0:21:10.640 --> 0:21:13.600 Everyone loves to throw that back around. Yeah, you can 0:21:13.600 --> 0:21:15.520 see it from outer space, and that made me look 0:21:15.600 --> 0:21:21.440 something up, chuck. Um, that's it's the largest living structure. Okay, 0:21:21.480 --> 0:21:24.040 So if if coral reef is an organism, do you 0:21:24.080 --> 0:21:30.239 know what the second largest living organism is? Um? My 0:21:30.320 --> 0:21:35.680 guests would be Louis Anderson. Is he still with us? 0:21:35.760 --> 0:21:37.240 I think so. I don't know why I picked a 0:21:37.800 --> 0:21:40.240 comedian that's been out of the loop for that long? 0:21:41.200 --> 0:21:45.159 Does a fat joke? Man? That was so many? No, 0:21:45.359 --> 0:21:51.560 it's a fungus in Oregon named amarially Ois stay years old. 0:21:52.040 --> 0:21:55.760 Takes up four square miles or ten square kilometers, single organism. 0:21:55.760 --> 0:22:00.680 Where is it Oregon? It's in our friend Van Austrian's house. 0:22:00.960 --> 0:22:04.479 So it's a big mushroom. Yeah. Interesting, didn't that cross? 0:22:04.600 --> 0:22:08.560 That is cross? So? Uh, the great Berry Reef? We're 0:22:08.560 --> 0:22:14.639 talking fourteen hundred twenty nine miles or clicks and um, 0:22:14.680 --> 0:22:17.000 it is not a single reef. It's about three thousand 0:22:17.440 --> 0:22:20.359 I got so I'm not sure if that number had 0:22:20.400 --> 0:22:23.760 declined since this was written or not. But um, Jennifer 0:22:23.800 --> 0:22:27.879 points out, and like you pointed out earlier, the the 0:22:27.960 --> 0:22:31.199 full edge of the reef is about um eighteen and 0:22:31.200 --> 0:22:34.520 a half thousand miles. So she says, if anyone's ever 0:22:34.560 --> 0:22:37.440 told you they've dived the entire Great Berry Reef. They're 0:22:37.560 --> 0:22:40.480 dirty liars, Yes, she said, they're lying because there's no 0:22:40.520 --> 0:22:42.280 way you couldn't do it in a lifetime. She said. 0:22:43.480 --> 0:22:46.160 I wonder if somebody told her that, and she inserted 0:22:46.200 --> 0:22:48.840 it in the article. I don't know. It's definitely an 0:22:48.840 --> 0:22:51.719 accusation due it is. It's a weird sense. It's one 0:22:51.760 --> 0:22:54.560 of the seven natural Wonders of the world. More than 0:22:54.600 --> 0:22:59.360 four hundred coral species, two thousand fish species, four thousand mollusks, 0:22:59.359 --> 0:23:03.400 and six of the seven sea turtle species. All right 0:23:03.440 --> 0:23:11.119 there for the for the googling, nice and the um 0:23:11.320 --> 0:23:13.640 the like you said, the Australians are gonna be proud 0:23:13.680 --> 0:23:17.480 of this and they should be. Back in ninety five, 0:23:17.600 --> 0:23:22.320 apparently it was in some jeopardy and the Australians moved 0:23:22.320 --> 0:23:27.480 to protect it as a National Marine Park UM and 0:23:28.720 --> 0:23:33.600 that basically ensured its survival. It's still, you know, kind 0:23:33.600 --> 0:23:38.360 of in rough shape here there is, as I understand. 0:23:38.480 --> 0:23:40.960 But UM six years after that, so let's see, that's 0:23:41.760 --> 0:23:46.200 one it became a World Heritage Site UM and one 0:23:46.240 --> 0:23:50.560 percent of the eighteen and a half thousand square miles 0:23:50.640 --> 0:23:55.200 or eighteen and a half thousand linear miles UM are 0:23:55.720 --> 0:23:58.800 open to the public except for that one percent to 0:23:58.920 --> 0:24:01.639 just one percent is that ated to research only? Just research, 0:24:01.720 --> 0:24:04.879 just pretty cool, not very much. They need bona fide 0:24:05.000 --> 0:24:08.600 scientists to dive that part. The rest of it, Jennifer 0:24:08.640 --> 0:24:11.280 points out, is divided into national park zones, which is 0:24:12.080 --> 0:24:15.600 where you can go, recreate and learn some things. And 0:24:15.640 --> 0:24:19.159 then the rest of it is general use, which means 0:24:19.320 --> 0:24:22.760 commercial fishing, which I guess there's no better time to 0:24:22.760 --> 0:24:27.240 get into the threats than right now. Yes, Um, there 0:24:27.280 --> 0:24:31.960 are some coral reefs and trouble UM the Great Barrier reef. 0:24:32.000 --> 0:24:34.199 Like I said, it's pretty well protected. But say if 0:24:34.240 --> 0:24:37.360 you look at some of the reefs in the Philippines 0:24:40.119 --> 0:24:43.560 have been destroyed and five percent, just five percent, are 0:24:43.560 --> 0:24:47.480