More bad news for corals. Whole stretches of pristine coral reefs have been turned into “slime-covered rubble” because of rising sea temperatures caused by climate change according to a new study in the Seychelles.

“Some of the reefs have collapsed to almost mobile beds of rubble. They are no longer solid structures and some have been overgrown with fleshy green mats of algae,” said Nicholas Graham, a coral ecologist at the University of Newcastle.

The scientists believe that the findings show that rising sea temperatures could have a more devastating impact on the world’s tropical corals than previously thought.