Caribbean coral reef decline began in 1950s and 1960s from local human activities

(Arizona State University) Now, in a new paper in Science Advances, Cramer has combined fossil data, historical records, and underwater survey data to reconstruct the abundance of staghorn and elkhorn corals over the past 125,000 years. She finds that these corals first began declining in the 1950s and 1960s, earlier than previously thought.