NPR ran a story this morning about the destruction of Oculina deep-water coral reefs off of Florida. Thanks to a bunch (~70,000) photographs taken of the reefs in the 1970s, we can compare before and after imagery of the strange deep-water ecosystem. John Reed, of the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution, published a study on the reefs' destruction in the Bulletin of Marine Science. The area was trawled heavily for shrimp in the interim, and most of the coral structures have been smashed to pieces. Listen to the full story here.

Labels: corals, reefs