Engineering

An eco-friendly solar-driven protocol solves water-oil separation

The discharge of nuclear wastewater from Japan has drawn concern and condemnation from countries around the world. As a result, the issue of marine pollution is once again in the spotlight. Among the traditional marine environmental ...

Robotics

Jellyfish-like robots could one day clean up the world's oceans

Most of the world is covered in oceans, which are unfortunately highly polluted. One of the strategies to combat the mounds of waste found in these very sensitive ecosystems—especially around coral reefs—is to employ ...

Coral reef

Coral reefs are aragonite structures produced by living organisms, found in marine waters containing few nutrients. In most reefs, the predominant organisms are stony corals, colonial cnidarians that secrete an exoskeleton of calcium carbonate. The accumulation of skeletal material, broken and piled up by wave action and bioeroders, produces a calcareous formation that supports the living corals and a great variety of other animal and plant life.

Coral reefs most commonly live in tropical waters, but deep water and cold water corals exist on a much smaller scale.

Globally, coral reefs are under threat from climate change, ocean acidification, overuse of reef resources, and harmful land-use practices. High nutrient levels such as those found in runoff from agricultural areas can harm reefs by encouraging excess algae growth.

This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA