MARINE SCIENTIST DR. BRIAN LAPOINTE TO LECTURE ON ENVIRONMENTAL TENSIONS OF SUNKEN VERSUS NATURAL TREASURES
Underwater video footage of coral reefs in the Florida Keys and around the world will be featured as part of a 7 p.m. Tuesday, April 6 lecture by Dr. Brian Lapointe at the Mel Fisher Maritime Museum.
Dr. Lapointe, a research scientist at Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute in Fort Pierce and a former advisor to Mel Fisher, will make a presentation on the environmental tensions caused by competing interests for use of ocean bottom, particularly in Sanctuary regions.
The video will also highlight the ecological consequences of nutrient pollution on coral reefs and harmful algal blooms. Lapointe, inspired to a career in marine science and videography from diving on South Florida reefs since he was nine years old, will explain that “the sink is full” for sensitive coral reefs. The most recent estimates reveal that 25% of the world’s coral reefs have already been destroyed and that another 25% will be lost over the next two decades. While coral reefs have evolved over millions of year and have, until now, survived dramatic changes in climate, they have never had to cope with the rapidly escalating global fertilization with nitrogen. Lapointe believes our challenge lies in moderating pollution of the earth’s atmosphere and coastal waters.
Dr. Lapointe has been associated with Boston University, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the University of Florida, University of South Florida, and Skidaway Institute of Oceanography in Savannah, Georgia. At Harbor Branch since 1983, Dr. Lapointe is published in more than 60 scientific publications and has been recognized by both Who’s Who in Diving and Undersea Research and Who’s Who in America in Science and Engineering.
Museum galleries at 200 Greene Street will be open at 6 p.m. for lecture attendees. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. The lecture is free and open to the public and is a part of the Museum’s Community of Visiting Scholars Lecture series.
The Mel Fisher Maritime Museum is an independent not-for-profit 501 c (3) nationally-accredited organization, dedicated to the exhibition, education, archaeology, preservation and research of maritime history in the New World and is the most visited nonprofit history museum in the southeastern United States.
