There are 4,000 year old coral reefs. Coral lives a very long life, so you can assume it survived the aftereffects of numerous volcanic eruptions, and the warming is not significant enough to kill it, it's other factors.

Coral reefs can live for very long periods of time. In the fossil record, all of their deaths are attributed to changes in their environment. They are not as tough as you think- their parameters for life: for temperature, salinity, depth to surface, especially depth to surface, are very narrow.

But the article is not talking about surface eruptions- its talking about the east pacific rise and the heat that comes from this is from the mantle on a very, very (can't say very enough!) large scale. This is on the scale of major plate shifts- its the engine that drives the whole planet!

That's why I keep coming back to : we can poison ourselves but we're just a small bit player on this planet.

P.S. If you wonder why you aren't hearing more about this from places like the USGS and other reliable sources, it is because of the same old thing : follow the money. It's unpopular these days to go against the grain and its probably not even worth it. All of the university and public funding is being funneled into projects that follow the party line about global warming. Woe to the "deniers" or anyone that takes too hard a look at research that promotes the popular theories of the day. That's why I made the comment previously about big government and big companies- they're not the only ones out there promoting bias in science.

alas, money. pure science is an art and capitalism doesn't reward dreamers ... I did read where the coast guard is adding new stations deeper in the Artic cause cruise ships have more ocean to play in. I've seen the earth from space as many have and there isn't a whole lot of man's work to see from 300 miles up but if all the plates are drifting to the Pacific ... well, you know what happens when you compress things. I'm no rocket scientist but my buddy Homer is ... you know, I'm like thinking super eruption, mega volcano with atmoshpere destroying greenhouse gas, even a return to the Venus like enviroment we may have enjoyed a few billion years ago. Imagine the whole Pacific ocean blowing up out of the deep! Talk about a movie plot. Gotta call my agent, thanks for the ispiration for insanity to run wild.

???????!!!!!!!!!?????????

The Party Line (GOP anyway, and they control the purse strings) has been to DENY DENY DENY Global Warming (aka more accurately Global Climate Change), and when they can't deny it any more because it is obvious even to an idiot to then deny that man has any role in causing it.

Here is an amusing fact: the entire time this administration was denying Global Warming and polar ice melting, the Navy (uh, ya, I guess that is part of this administration) was looking at the implications of Global Warming and sea-level rise for the strategery of submarines and warships, where they can go now that they couldn't before because the water is deeper now and where they can't go now because the bridges are (relatively) lower.

And why at the fuss over ANWR now? Because previous to now, it was icelocked too much of the year to make getting the oil out practical. The very Global Warming this administration was denying is the very thing that made ANWR feasible and put it into play.

Uhhh, yeah, I was talking about ocean-floor volcanoes. They have been around for quite a while. No, I don't believe coral is tough, in fact it is very fragile. My reference was to coral living for 4,000 years, despite these ocean-floor volcanic eruptions.

Plate tectonics causes magma leaks. All this contributes to El Nino and global weather patterns. I don't understand what the point is.

Global warming is but one of the symptoms of the damage we're inflicting on the planet.

I'm sorry, but I still don't get your point. What party line? These stories are still buried in page 5. Page 1 is dedicated to the latest Bush project, shared with big news of Angelina's baby, or Britney's shaved you know what.

What projects are you referring to that take all the money away, and what do they take it away from? Can you provide examples? McCain was complaining about the $3M we spent studying bear DNA. Does he have a clue that we're far, far, far, behind on basic research?