Science in the News - Oldest Examples of Two Coral Species Are Found

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VOICE ONE:

This is SCIENCE IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English. I'm Bob Doughty.

VOICE TWO:

And I'm Faith Lapidus. This week, we will tell about newly-found organisms that are said to be among the oldest living organisms on Earth. And, we will tell about the first complete report of bird populations in the United States.

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VOICE ONE:A research team says it has found corals that are more than four thousand years old. The corals were discovered at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, near the Hawaiian Islands. The team made the discovery with a vehicle designed to operate deep underwater. At depths of nearly four hundred meters, the researchers found the oldest examples of two species of coral. One is a kind of deep-water black coral called Leiopathes. The other was a gold coral, called Gerardia.

A report on the team's discovery was published recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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The team collected pieces of the coral and then used radio-carbon dating methods to find their age.  The tests showed the organisms were, in fact, much older than reported in earlier estimates.

One of the researchers was Brendan Roark of Texas A-and-M University. He says the Leiopathes corals were shown to be about four thousand two hundred sixty-five years old. The Gerardia is believed to be about two thousand seven hundred forty-two years old.

The age of the corals would make them among the oldest living creatures in existence. Scientists know that some of the Bristlecone pines in northern California are also more than four thousand years old.

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Deep sea corals face numerous threats. They include illegal harvesting and activities linked to deep-sea fishing. Other threats include human pollution, acidification from carbon dioxide and rising temperatures in Earth's atmosphere.

Professor Roark says corals are important because they support many other forms of sea life. He says they also can show part of the ocean's ancient history. Corals have hard, stony skeletons that grow like tree trunks. The skeletons have growth rings that represent ocean water conditions at the time.  

Professor Roark says knowing the age of the corals might help scientists understand earlier water conditions and ocean surface productivity. And, he says the discovery will add to what scientists know about Earth's changing climate.

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