Management-related studies were primarily intended to investigate the role of human activities
in outbreaks and to provide options for controlling them should they be found to be triggered
or exacerbated by human activity. "Conclusive evidence of major populations prior to major
human impact or involvement with the Great Barrier Reef would alleviate concern that they
represent a totally new, man-induced alteration to the ecological dynamics of the system"
(COTSAC, 1985). To this end, oral history studies were intended to research evidence of
outbreaks on an historic timescale (200 years) while examination of reefal sediments for COTS
skeletal elements was to find evidence of outbreaks on a geologic timescale (15,000 years)
