What is the significance of the breaker reef junk

As an active military base during the Cold War, the bay witnessed the disposal of the submarines those completed their military duty. However, many submarines disposed of in the Bay were dismantled and recycled later, especially during the s.

Ship graveyards in recent times have come under the scrutiny of environmentalists and preservationists of the oceanic ecosystem and ecology. Organisations like the Greenpeace are making huge efforts to make people aware of the repercussions of such ship graveyards. However, those ships which are not disposed of in dry docks still do become a part of the ship graveyard chain.

In order to protect the marine ecosystem from degenerating further, it is important and highly imperative that the usage of ship graveyards is restricted and curtailed. Data and charts, if used, in the article have been sourced from available information and have not been authenticated by any statutory authority.

The author and Marine Insight do not claim it to be accurate nor accept any responsibility for the same. The views constitute only the opinions and do not constitute any guidelines or recommendation on any course of action to be followed by the reader. The article or images cannot be reproduced, copied, shared or used in any form without the permission of the author and Marine Insight.

Journalist by training, and an academic in aspiration, Shamseer Mambra currently works as a freelance journalist, after spending three years in the newsrooms of some of the reputed media houses in India.

When not at work, he likes to read, click photographs and go for a ride on his bike. Sinking Ships is just a pure waste of resources. It is not for our benefit but only the Governments. It is only cost cutting. We should really be recycling our metal. It will run out one day. Then what? A lot of the time children doing this hard labor. Ship scrap company in India is Priyathi shipping after beaching the vessel they do not pay the salaries specially senior officers.

Your email address will not be published. This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website Got it! Where do all the ships go after their service life? Hard corals, sometimes called true corals, are often said to be the most significant invertebrates found in shallow, tropical seas. More than 2, species of hard, reef-building corals occur worldwide.

A mere 60 or so can be found in the waters of the Caribbean, the Bahamas and Florida, while more than 10 times as many species can be found in the waters of the Indo-Pacific. Soft corals also play vital roles in coral reef ecosystems during their lifetimes by providing food and habitat for many animals, but the skeletons of soft corals lack the calcium carbonate found in hard corals. As a result, the impact of soft corals is more temporary than that of hard corals. The colonial animals we commonly refer to as sea fans, gorgonian corals and sea whips are types of soft corals.

The reef-building process is ongoing, and it is not perfectly uniform. The demise of one generation of coral polyps spawns the development of future generations to colonize by creating suitable living quarters and places of attachment for new polyps to settle or bud out. This process has been underway for eons and continues today as the geological clock of the reef continuously ticks away. But all is not rosy in coral gardens. Violent storms can wreak havoc on coral reefs.

There is also a lot of damage done to coral reefs by a variety of coral predators, such as boring sponges, a variety of worms, crabs, snails, sea stars, nudibranchs and fishes.

Fishes represent the largest and most diverse group of coral predators by far. Collectively, these fishes feed on the living polyps, algae that live within the corals and the skeletons that provide the foundation for the reef. Parrotfishes are probably the most noteworthy fishes in this respect.

They transform hard corals into sand as they feed. The fishes eat the living corals in order to gain access to the symbiotic algae that live within the polyps. Parrotfishes then defecate the unwanted coral parts, transforming these remains into much of the sand that forms tropical beaches and the sea floor in so many tropical settings.

Butterflyfishes and angelfishes also nibble away at colonies of corals. Their activities tend to be more localized and are not considered extensive. Often a nibbled-upon coral will regenerate lost tissue and continue to flourish. An Indo-Pacific species of sea star known as the crown-of-thorns Acanthaster planci is a rather voracious coral predator.

This sea star feeds by thrusting its own stomach outside its body and using it to envelope and digest living corals. At a normal density of only a handful of crown-of-thorns on a reef that is several hundreds yards long, there is balance in the natural system. The crown-of-thorns creates living space for other animals by devouring the corals, and in many instances these animals become valuable partners to the still-living corals.

When a coral head is killed or dies, it is highly unlikely that the entire head will be immediately colonized by new polyps. But that does not mean the space will go unused. A variety of algae and invertebrates soon begin competing for the space. Their life cycles are a vital and necessary part of the ongoing struggle for life on a coral reef.

The ability to attach to the sea floor or to other organisms is a life-and-death priority for many creatures that reside in coral reef communities. Recognizing the fundamental nature of the ongoing competition for space in coral reef communities, and gaining insight into the various survival strategies and life cycles of various reef species, can provide you with a much better understanding of how so many different organisms thrive in coral reef communities.

The world of corals is quite diverse. Exactly where various species might be found within a typical reef ecosystem is not a matter of chance. Fierce competition describes the relationship between corals, as each species fights for its own niche. All hard corals require plenty of sunlight.

As a result, reef-building corals need shallow, clear water that offers maximum penetration by sunlight. Shallow water tends to mean rougher water, so the corals that occur in the shallows must be strong enough to withstand pounding surf and wave action. In a typical Caribbean reef community, sturdy species of staghorn and elkhorn coral are commonly found under and just seaward of the breakers.

The latticework created by these corals offers protection to animals such as crabs, shrimps and sea urchins that inhabit the shallows, while the structure also provides habitat for worms and other animals that bore into coral. To the seaward side of these corals, you will often find a rubble zone. Small heads of star corals, as well as a variety of soft corals, often occur in the rubble zone, as do many invertebrates and small, bottom-dwelling fishes.

Other species are better suited for deeper, calmer waters. As you swim toward deeper water, you are likely to discover stretches of sand that result from the constant battering and degradation of the most seaward corals. The sand provides ideal habitat for stingrays, flatfishes, sea cucumbers and mollusks, such as conchs. Small patch reefs can often be found in the sand. These reefs are oases for a wide variety of invertebrates and small fishes, including many juveniles.

If you could position yourself high above a typical Caribbean reef and magically remove all the water, you would see a series of sand strips separated by long fingers of reef that extend from the shallows all the way to the top of a wall, or drop-off. Sea fans and sponges often stand out prominently in the upper portion of the reef buttress and along the top of the wall.

These organisms tend to flourish where currents flow. Sponges filter nutrients out of the water column, while sea fans form stinging nets that capture nutrients by reaching across flowing waters. As you descend you will probably notice that star corals begin to grow more in flattened plates than in the rounded mounds that occur in shallow waters.

Sunlight enables the vital process of photosynthesis to occur in the symbiotic algae known as zooxanthellae. As you continue your descent, the variety and amount of hard corals diminishes considerably. But various species of reef-building corals, such as brain coral, giant polyp coral and green coral, are commonly encountered along the reef escarpment, and many soft corals, such as deep-water gorgonians, black coral and wire coral, thrive in deeper, calmer waters.

Both living corals and their skeletons provide wonderful microhabitat for many other organisms. Some gain shelter, food or living space on a temporary basis, while other organisms form more permanent relationships.

A book written by John Holbrook in is one of the earliest publications on how to design and use artificial reefs to attract fish in an area that was damaged by on-land development.

However, we are going to focus more on the artificial reefs for coral restoration, rather than those in temperate climates or used to increase fish catch rates. A lot of people attribute Charles Darwin with being the first reef restorationist, when he attached dislodged corals to bamboo stakes and observed that they were able to survive, unlike those that were left to roll around in the sands. Although not a very effective artificial reef bamboo will degrade in water faster than the coral can lock it self in , it is a good example of how artificial reefs can be used to provide a safe and stable growing environment for corals.

Although interesting, it was probably divers visiting sunken wrecks that first really noticed how artificial substrates can be transformed into thriving natural coral reef environments. From those roots, the idea took hold that we could actually improve the rate of succession and recovery of ecosystems after they were damaged by providing the structure that corals and sponges need, and the habitat for the fish and invertebrates that all play a roll in keeping the ecosystem healthy and functioning.

Many of these worked well, if they were stable, non-toxic, and structurally diverse. Unfortunately, at the same time, others saw artificial reefs as a way of disposing of waste without paying the required fees and even getting some recognition as a responsible business. Such examples include mixing dry industrial waste or ash into concrete, dumping of millions of tires into the sands, and the use of construction waste in places like Singapore. These later examples set-back the field of artificial reefs for many years, and still today are used by scientists to argue against their applicability in protecting marine resources.

Luckily for reefs however, most conservationists recognize that those bad examples are just part of the learning curve, and that things have come a long way since those days. Today, instead of using just materials of opportunity or waste, most artificial reefs are purposefully designed and deployed using long-lasting and non-toxic materials that provide a high degree of surface and structural diversity. Today, we generally recognize several main goals for artificial reefs:. It is important to recognize that artificial reefs only work in areas where water quality is still conducive to coral growth.

Artificial reefs are a great tool of marine resource managers, but it is only one tool on our belt. There are many factors that can make an artificial reef a success or failure, and even the same techniques and materials may work well in some situations and not in others.

A complete description of the materials, techniques, and environmental factors to consider is a lot more than can fit in one article, which is part of the reason why we offer extended courses on the topic. However, below are some of the techniques we or others have tried that have failed, and a bit about why. It should be a given, but we still see this going on today. Waste materials are rarely good for building reefs as they tend to be too small and not stable for organisms to grow on them. They often leach toxic chemicals or do not provide the surface micro-structure needed for organisms to latch onto.

However, time and time again these so called artificial reefs are found to move or overturn in even light storms, break apart, and eventually start to degrade and release toxic chemicals. Furthermore, blue and green PVC has a smooth surface that corals will not readily recruit or attach to, and so it never ends up looking like a natural reef.

Another example was a study by Dr. Laurie Raymundo in Guam following blast fishing, in which PVC mesh was laid out on the destroyed reef and transplanted with coral. Raymundo showed pictures of the area, no corals had attached and for the most part the mesh was making a mess of the area and was later removed.

The main goal of artificial reefs is to create solid structure, however that aim seems to get lost in some artificial reef projects. The classic example of this is using construction blocks aka breeze or cinder blocks , which are literally designed to be lightweight and easy to break in half.