New research into a 253-year-old coral sample from Olowalu provides a first-of-its-kind glimpse into the environmental history of Maui.
Scientists who studied the two-century-old core found that the reef’s growth, or lack thereof, closely mirrored what was happening on land. The period they examined, 1760 to 2013, covers the precolonial era, the rise and fall of the sugar-plantation economy and Maui’s development as a tourist mecca.
