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Reef types include fringing reefs, barrier reefs, and atolls. A fringing reef is a reef that is attached to an island. Whereas, a barrier reef forms a calcareous barrier around an island, resulting in a lagoon between the shore and the reef. Conversely, an atoll is a ring reef with no land present.
The reef drop-off is, for its first 50 m, habitat for reef fish who find shelter on the cliff face and plankton in the water nearby. The drop-off zone applies mainly to the reefs surrounding oceanic islands and atolls. The reef face is the zone above the reef floor or the reef drop-off. This zone is often the reef's most diverse area.
The reef flat is the shoreward, flat, broadest area of the reef. The reef flat is found in fairly shallow water and can be uncovered during low tide. This area of the reef is only slightly sloped towards the open ocean. [5] Since the reef flat is adjacent or nearly adjacent to land, it sustains the most damage from runoff and sediments.
The Amazon Reef (also referred to as the Amazonian Reef) is an extensive coral and sponge reef system, located off the coast of French Guiana and northern Brazil. It is one of the largest reef systems in the world known to exist, with scientists estimating its length to be over 600 miles (970 km) long, and covering over 3,600 square miles ...
Bank (geography) – Land alongside a body of water; Coastal Barrier Resources Act — 1982 U.S. law; Reef – Shoal of rock, coral, or other material lying beneath the surface of water; Tombolo – Deposition landform in which an island is connected to the mainland by a sandy isthmus
Second is the patch reef community. Patch reefs form in shallow water (three to six meters deep), some in Hawk Channel and some on the outer reef, but mainly on White Bank between Hawk Channel and the outer reefs. Patch reefs start from corals growing on a hard bottom, but grow upward as new corals establish themselves on the skeletons of dead ...
Coral reefs, the so-called "rainforests of the sea", occupy less than 0.1 percent of the world's ocean surface, yet their ecosystems include 25 percent of all marine species. [85] The best-known are tropical coral reefs such as Australia's Great Barrier Reef , but cold water reefs harbour a wide array of species including corals (only six of ...
The Great Barrier Reef can be seen from outer space and is the world's biggest single structure made by living organisms. [7] This reef structure is composed of and built by billions of tiny organisms, known as coral polyps. [8] It supports a wide diversity of life and was selected as a World Heritage Site in 1981.