Electrified reef

[1] In the 1970s, whilst studying how seashells and reefs grow, Wolf Hilbertz discovered a simple method of creating limestone from minerals dissolved in seawater, which he called biorock.

[2] With others, Hilbertz and Goreau made expeditions to the Saya de Malha bank in 1997 and 2002 where they grew an artificial island around steel structures anchored to the sea floor using this process.

[5][citation needed] In 2012, both Goreau and Robert K. Trench published works on how the process could generate building materials as well as restore damaged ecosystems.

Dissolved calcium carbonate and magnesium hydroxide and other minerals naturally found in seawater breakdown in the vicinity of the anode and recombine and precipitate out of the water onto the cathode.

This electric field, together with shade and protection offered by the metal/limestone frame soon attracts colonizing marine life, including fish, crabs, clams, octopus, lobster and sea urchins.

The 50-meter-long shore protection reef stabilized and ultimately reversed erosion in several years, even allowing the beach to survive a tsunami in 2004.

[citation needed] Electric reef projects had been installed in over 20 countries, in the Caribbean, Indian Ocean, Pacific and Southeast Asia.

Projects are located in French Polynesia, Indonesia, Maldives, Mexico, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Seychelles, the Philippines, Thailand and on one of the most remote and unexplored reef areas of the world, the Saya de Malha Bank in the Indian Ocean.

[citation needed] Electrolysis of electric reefs enhances coral growth, reproduction and ability to resist environmental stress.

Biorock can enable coral growth and regrowth even in the presence of environmental stress such as rising ocean temperatures, diseases, and nutrient, sediment, and other types of pollution.

Biorock represents the only known method that can sustain and grow natural coral species using only basic conducting elements, typically of a common metal such as steel.