Great Barrier Reef - Location And Extent, Formation, Discovery And Exploration, Biology, Tourism And Environmental Hazards
The Great Barrier Reef lies off the northeastern coast of Australia and is both a scientific wonder and an increasingly popular tourist attraction. It has been described as "the most complex and perhaps the most productive biological system in the world." The Great Barrier Reef is the largest structure ever made by living organisms including human beings, consisting of the skeletons of tiny coral polyps and hydrocorals bounded together by the soft remains of coralline algae and microorganisms.
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The tiny coral polyps began building their great Reef in the Miocene Epoch which began 23.7 million years ago and ended 5.3 million years ago. The continental shelf has subsided almost continually since the Miocene Epoch so the Reef has grown upward with the living additions to the Reef in the shallow, warm water near the surface; live coral cannot survive below a depth of about 25 fathoms (150 ft…
The aborigines (the native people of Australia) undoubtedly were the first discoverers of the Great Barrier Reef. The Chinese probably explored it about 2,000 years ago while searching for marine creatures like the sea cucumber that are believed to have medicinal properties. During his voyage across the Pacific Ocean in 1520, Ferdinand Magellan missed Australia and its Reef. Captain James Cook, th…
The Reef is the product of over 350 species of coral and red and green algae. The number of coral species in the northern section of the Reef exceeds the number (65) of coral species found in the entire Atlantic Ocean. Polyps are the live organisms inside the coral, and most are less than 0.3 in (8 mm) in diameter. They feed at night by extending frond-like fingers to wave zooplankton toward their…
In 1990, Conservation, Education, Diving, Archaeology, and Museums International (CEDAM International) gathered the opinions of the world's most respected marine experts and selected "seven underwater wonders of the world" including the Great Barrier Reef. Of course, the idea was inspired by the seven wonders of the ancient world, which were all manmade and of which only the G…
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