Coral Bleaching at Magnetic Island March 18th 2022

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Raw footage of the coral community at Geoffrey Bay on Magnetic Island on March 18th 2022.
19° 9.243'S 146° 52.104'E
Sea temperatures crossed the 32°C bleaching threshold between the 5th and 11th of March before a strong south-easterly wind change brought cooler conditions, cloud cover and re-mixed the water mass. Water temperatures have since fallen and were 28.4°C during today's survey.

About 50 to 75% of the Acropora colonies were partially or fully bleached, while most of the Montipora corals looked healthy apart from some incipient disease patches (atromentous necrosis) which has indeed been seen before at Magnetic Island during summer heat stress events.

See disease reference here:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3037388/

Our assessment based on today's level of bleaching, the current and expected weather conditions, and the similarity to the 2020 bleaching event (see https://youtu.be/6edtV-opRrk ), is that most of the corals at this site that are currently bleached will eventually recover over the next 6-8 weeks.

Stay tuned for updates as we will be doing more extensive surveys in the coming week once visibility improves.

Coralseafoundation.net