Already preempted you RockDoc. (see my previous post) Once again you twist the truth with the best of them
Yeah right. Exactly where did I twist the truth. Clearly you know nothing about taxonomy or how it relates to corals.
The first 'corals' appeared in the mid-Triassic. During the Triassic-Jurassic extinction event, a time of high ocean acidity and atmospheric CO2, reef development collapsed for millions of years, and resumed again with new coral families in the Jurassic once CO2 came back down.
It all depends on what you are referring to on a Taxonomic level. The Order Scleractinia of which modern extant Families and Generic levels of corals are members survived the Triassic/Jurassic extinction. The commonality within the Order is they are all calcium carbonate secretors. And that is the important point when it comes to looking at survival in warm or colder waters and varying levels of PH. The Family Acroporidae which includes the modern Genus Acropora has been around since the Jurassic and has survived higher and lower temperatures than current and more acidic waters. Choosing to just look at Generic or Specific levels in an argument ignores the ability of organisms within the same Order or Family to diversify through time. As well blaming the lack of coral growth on high CO2 is a bit of a stretch given it was much higher during the Jurassic and Devonian when carbonate secreting corals were widespread.
The skeletons of corals are made of calcium carbonate which dissolves in conditions of high acidity.
Ocean waters have never been acidic they are currently quite alkaline. Throughout the last 200 million years they have never dropped below 7.5 PH, 7.0 being neutral.
The precursors of the corals we have today evolved in the mid-Miocene and have NEVER BEFORE seen high ocean acidity or CO2 levels higher than current levels
Sorry incorrect. Mean surface PH in the Paleogene was ~7.8 and did not rise above 8.0 until the start of the Neogene and is currently at 8.1. See Figure 1 from:
Ridgwell A and Schmidt D, 2010. Past constraints on the vulnerability of marine calcification to massive carbon dioxide release. Nature Geoscience, 3, p 196-200As to what you mean by pre-cursor are you refering to the Generic level? If so why? The entire Family (back to Jurassic) and indeed Order (back to Triassic) were carbonate secretors and they certainly endured both higher temperatures and higher CO2 levels.