Tsunami

[AJinNY]

It goes without saying that our hearts go out to all those families affected by this disaster.

With regard to reefs.....given the weight of the water and the force of the waves, could this have any impact, long or short term, on the fish or the corals in those regions?

[mps9506]

Only long term concerns I would think of is from run off caused byu this. I'm not real familiar with topography of the many islands in the area, but any fertilizer and sediment runoff could cause some long term eutrification problems on some reefs.
I think in the overall scheme of things this will have little overall impact on the reefs. Stoney shallow corals are equipped to deal with natural disasters of the sort. They handle temp/salinity changes quite well, can be broken into tiny bits and regrow, etc.
there have been numerous studies done on how natural reefs handle events like storms and jurricanes. The rate of regrowth by acropora and montipora colonies is amazing. These guys were designed for this.

[brian_e]

hay how about the colectors that where on the reefs at the time the wave came in

[jimeluiz]

From reading many posts at the Lonely Planet, Thorn Tree forum it seems that divers off the coast of Thailand were tossed around a bit but otherwise not affected as the tsunami rolled overhead.

It would seem, as Mike sugests, that the worst affect may be from debri pulled back into the sea battering the reefs or especially from nasty runoff fouling the water.

We will see...

[AJinNY]

Is it possible that species of fish typically found in one region got washed into another region and will take up shop there? Or it doesnt work like that?

[sharks]

This will impact fish imports. My vendor was saying he spoke to his main FW fish importer and while he and his family are OK all his boats and a number of his local collectors are gone. It’s going to take some time for the import industry to back into full swing. Again this will be mainly fresh water fish. Coral shipping countries were not affected. Most corals come from the fiji/bali/tonga area of the pacific.

Here is a link to all the places we can donate to help these unfortunate people.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapc...nami.aidsites/

[jimeluiz]

I understand the Wall Street Journal has a front page article today that describes how in those areas where coral reefs had been mined/dismantled for agricultural purposes the on-shore destruction was worse than those areas where the reefs are still intact. I'll have to get a paper, viewing online requires a subscription. Any subscribers out there who can copy and paste the article?

One more reason to allow reefs to thrive...

[mps9506]

I did read accounts of divers not niticing a thing as the waves rolled in. I can imagine as a surfer once you get to a certain depth you don't really notice the wave action once you dive underwater (the reason we dive under the waves to pass through them, much easier than plowing through).
I'll take a look at the article, I haven't logged in the journal in a while, all it requires is an email address.

sharks, time to get your FW fish from Florida Just no cool imports for a while.