Speedy Recovery
An aerial view of part of Australia's Great Barrier Reef. | Discovery News Video
Want to snorkel there. Promise I will not touch.
April 23, 2009 -- A section of Australia's Great Barrier Reef, which scientists have warned could be killed by global warming within decades, has regenerated itself in record time, a scientist said Thursday.
But Laurence McCook, head of research for the authority that preserves the World Heritage-listed reef, said the giant organism remained at serious threat of climate change and labeled the partial regeneration a "lucky escape."
The badly damaged stretch of coral at Keppel Island, at the reef's southern end, became strangled by seaweed after it began bleaching in 2006 due to elevated sea temperatures and acidity, the results of global warming.
Bleaching occurs when the plant-like organisms that make up coral die and leave behind the white limestone skeleton of the reef.
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