USVI Diverse Coral Ecosystems

Paul Angelides is an established Syosset, New York entrepreneur who maintains membership in the National Academy of Forensic Engineers. A boating and marine enthusiast, Paul Angelides maintains part-time residence in St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI).

Located in the northeastern Caribbean, the USVI are connected with the British Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico via an underwater platform that gradually slopes north to a depth of 300 meters, before running into the Puerto Rico trench, which extends 8,000 meters deep. To the south, this shelf extends 13 kilometers before abruptly dropping off to a depth of 4,000 meters.

Within the shelf where the U.S. Virgin Islands are situated, there are algal ridges and a variety of reef types, as well as a submarine canyon, There are no true coral reefs near the shoreline, but numerous coral communities grow in shallow water along mangrove prop roots and on boulders, up to depths of 50 meters. Shallow reefs further offshore tend to have a mix of dead elkhorn coral stands and a few high-density living stands.

Unfortunately, coral communities in the U.S. Virgin Islands are under threat, with a coral disease outbreak that decimated 80 percent of stony corals across 100,000 acres from Key Biscayne and Key West in Florida having spread to USVI coral communities in 2019. The disease impacts long-lived coral species that build reefs and represents the worst example of a multi-species coral disease ever experienced in the Caribbean. One theory is that this habitat-threatening disease has moved south through elements such as ship hulls or boat ballast water.