Researchers from the Australian Institute of Marine Science said Scott Reef in the Indian Ocean suffered "spectacular damage" when tropical Cyclone Fay raged over it in late March.

"The degree of destruction observed at Scott Reef is extremely rare, at most a one-in-100-year event," said Luke Smith, the institute's top scientist in Western Australia.

Fay, packing wind gusts of up to 300 kilometers (180 miles) per hour, "uprooted many large coral colonies and tore huge reef boulders up to five metres (yards) in diameter from the reef's edge," Smith said.

"Many of the corals that survived the cyclone were severely damaged, their branches removed leaving only their bases," he said.

"Even colonies down to 20 meters (66 feet) were damaged and buried under rubble," he said.

Marine scientists only discovered the devastation caused by Fay when they visited the reef this month to document how the coral was recovering from a mass bleaching event that struck tropical reefs worldwide in 1998.

Scott Reef, located about 300 kilometers off Australia's northwest tip, was one of the worst affected by the bleaching -- a process associated with global warming in which the colorful tissue of the coral dies off, leaving the white skeleton behind.

The reef lost 80 percent of its coral at the time and Smith said scientists feared the cyclone damage "has shattered all recovery since the bleaching".

"Scientists had initially planned to further document reproduction and recruitment in corals, describe patterns of surface water currents, and to exchange temperature and tide loggers on their trip to Scott Reef, but were faced with the shocking aftermath of mother nature at its wildest," he said.

Smith said he and his colleagues had little choice now but to research how a coral reef could recover from multiple disasters, including both bleaching and cyclones.

TERRA.WIRE