Great Barrier Reef Research Paper

With over 2,900 individual reefs the Great Barrier Reef is the world's largest reef system. The Great Barrier Reef is located off shore of Queensland, Australia and is about 1,400 miles long. It is home to more than 1,500 species of fish, and more than 400 species of coral.

History

It is predicted the the great barrier reef started growing over 20 million years old, it reached its modern form about 8,000 years ago after the last ice age. The first documented contact with the Great Barrier Reef by humans was in the 1700s but it is predicted that there could have been contact with it around 40,000 years ago by the Aboriginal people.

Industry

The Great Barrier Reef in total is about a 6 billion dollar industry. Tourism is a huge part of Australia's economy, the Great Barrier Reef is a huge reason why many are traveling to Australia. If the great barrier reef dies, the majority of that 6 billion will be

Home to more that 1,500 species of fish this reef is on its last legs. Coral bleaching is when the water gets warm so coral lets out all of its algae, without the algae coral loses its main source of food. The coral can still survive but become very vulnerable to disease and much of the coral that becomes bleached does die. 93% of the Great Barrier reef is bleached today. About 50% of the coral that get bleached end up dyeing. Bleaching can happen because of oil and things that are in the water that should not be, exposure to air when tides are low, exposure to sun light and warm ocean temperature. Most of these things are caused by humans and we can fix them. This habitat is also being destroyed because of coal mining. A new coal mine has opened in Queensland just inland of the Great Barrier Reef, they will need to ship the coal from a port that is right next to the southern part of the reef. The cargo ships that are needed to transport the coal, these ships leak man toxins for the