A Reef That Grew on Lava
In 1988 Gunung Api erupted and buried the reef under rock. Thirty-eight years later it is the healthiest hard coral in the Banda Sea.
Osbert
Co-founder
11 min read
The lava reached the water on the north-west side of Gunung Api in May 1988 and kept going over everything. Divers that year described a grey desert. The most interesting reef in the Banda Sea is now growing on top of it.
Fresh volcanic rock is hard, clean, rough enough to grip, and uncontested. Add nutrient-rich upwellings and larval drift from healthy reefs, and the slope was colonised in a decade.
Recovery is not a property of coral. It is a property of a neighbourhood: healthy reefs, clean water, and time to grow.
Filed underBanda
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