Between September 26th and October 5th, I accompanied Dr. Ian Enochs and Mr. Nate Formel to Union Island in the Grenadines to investigate, characterize, and sample corals from a carbon dioxide vent near the locally famous “Mayreau Gardens” dive site off the namesake island. Despite carbon dioxide acidifying the waters near the vent, corals there are flourishing, and we aimed to uncover just why and how this is so. This represents an exciting “natural laboratory” experiment in which we can gauge the “future” behavior of reefs in the now.
That said, there are still plenty of challenges, and even before stony coral tissue loss disease, AGGRA had given SVG’s reefs as a whole a 2.5 out of 5 (2016 report).
Here are some photos of beautiful Union Island:
