The Great Barrier Reef (2)

North and North-West from Gladstone Queensland to one point of the Gulf of Papua opposite Port Moresby Papua New Guinea lies the magnificent Great Barrier Reef. The Great Barrier Reef is a stretch of 2000 kilometres of coral and fish. There is parts of the Great Barrier Reef which is 18 million years old but the majority of the structure that can be seen today has only developed over the last 2 million years. There are 1500 species of tropical fish alone, plus a diverse sea life of sharks, turtles, rays, clams and other shellfish. The water is so crystal clear that the visibility is magnificent, the visibility ranges up to 60 metres. The Great Barrier Reef is the largest formation of coral Reefs in the world.

The coral reef.

Coral Reefs are built up by billions of tiny animals called coral polyps and plants called Coralline Algae These plants and animals deposit limestone. Dead corals, bound together by their own limestone and that of the skeletons of coralline algae, make up The Great Barrier Reef. Over thousands of years, corals that are cemented together form a part of the reef many metres thick, with a thin outside wall of living coral. The coral Reef includes many species or coral for example: Staghorn coral, Brain coral, Honeycomb coral, and Mound coral.

Things To Do and See.

The main resorts in the reef region are located on Continental islands. Most of the resorts are in the Whitsunday's group of islands offshore from Proserpine. Only the Coral Cay resorts of Green Island, Heron Island and Lady Elliott Island can truly claim to be on the Reef. Scattered across calm blue waters are 7 tropical island which are a collection of the Whitsunday's. A majority of the islands are inhabited national parks, surrounded by unspoiled beaches and dense rainforest. Airlie Beach and Shute Harbour are the Whitsunday's main islands. Several companies provide diving and snorkelling trips to the Great Barrier Reef, 70 kilometres offshore.

Sea anemones and symbionts.

Sea anemones are flower-like animals closely related to corals, but lacking any skeleton. They burrow into sediments or attach themselves to rocks with an adhesive disc. Their simple body resembles a bucket rimmed with tentacles, each of which is covered with clusters of stinging cells, the cnidocysts. Anemones feed by stinging and engulfing their prey with their mobile tentacles. These creatures and the Clown fish were first reported together by the naturalist Collingwood over 100 years ago in the South China Sea. Clown Fish will dart out and feed on plankton, but are known to share a meal with their anemone.

Arlena Squires, Year 10, Herberton, Australia

References

The World Book Encyclopedia 1992 pp 312 - 316