Coral Reef Essay

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Coral reefs have been around for more than 400 million year ago! They found fossils around that time. Reefs are extremely ancient and are evolving “into modern reef building.” Coral reefs are very unique in there color to how many different marine life
Coral reefs have a history too!
I bet you didn’t know that coral reefs and sea anemones are related!? They share the same structure, the polyp. A polyp are “tiny, soft-bodied organisms related to sea anemones and jellyfish.” The structure has a mouth surrounded with tiny little tentacles. Shallow water corals that live in water often have another or different food source. The food that they eat is called zooxanthellance. Both of their skeleton is made made out of a CaCO3. They have a body averaging …show more content…

Coral reefs do have a structure. “Coral reefs begin to form when free-swimming coral larvae attach to the edges of island or continents.” There are three types of reefs, fringing, barrier and atoll. Beds of sea grasses often develop in sandy regions. The three reefs share the same similarities from their bottom to pogramph their temperature. But they do have various zones which vary according to their location and their type of reef. There are more than a few thousand reefs that range close to flat. A reef has a highest point and it’s lowest point; it’s highest point is called the reef crest or algal ridge. The width of this zone typically varies, but they are usually 50 meters. These types of reefs produce hundreds of marine life; from small crabs o tiny little …show more content…

This reef is off the coast of Queensland, Australia. It stretches more than 1,800 miles and tops 40 miles wide in some areas of the coral reef. This reef is so massive that you could see parts of the reef from outer space! This reef is made up of over 600 types of hard and soft corals; and over 3,000 individual reefs systems. This coral has 30 species of whales and dolphins; 1,625 species of different types of fish, 33 species of sharks and rays. There are over 100 islands making up the coral reef; here are 6 out of the 100 islands that make up this reef. Haggerstone Island, Heron Island, Brampton Island, Bedarra Island, lizard Island and, Hayman Island. This reef has many different cities that surround the coral, here are 4 out of the many cities that surround the reef; Cairns, Townsville, Rockhampton, and

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