The Great Barrier Reef is the world’s largest reef system.The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park was declared in 1975. It has been deemed as one of the seven natural wonders of the world by CNN, along with the Grand Canyon, Mount Everest, and more.The terrestrial and marine life of the reef is one of its kind. Marine biodiversity is something to marvel at as it includes fish, whales, sharks, six marine turtle species to sponges, microorganisms, and more. The Australian Government earns around $6 billion every year from tourism at the reef. However, coral bleaching owing to climate change is threatening the reef, and we should be concerned.Read on to know more about the Great Barrier Reef and if you like this article, then also check out California cactus types and the Roman pantheon.Geographical Location, Area Of The Great Barrier ReefThe Great Barrier Reef, the largest coral reef system in the world, is located along the Queensland coast of Australia. The approximate latitude of the Great Barrier Reef is from 9°08’S to 24°06’S, and approximate longitude is from 143°52’E to 152°42’E.The Great Barrier Reef is located along the northeast coast of Australia, contained entirely within the Coral Sea. The reef extends to Bramble Cay of the Torres Strait Islands, Queensland in the north, to Lady Elliot Island in the south. The reef is not a single place on its own; it’s rather made up of more than 900 islands and 2900 individual reefs. The reef is a continental shelf system that rarely crosses a distance of more than 186.4 mi (300 km) offshore. It’s composed in the shape of a long band along the shore spread across about 1429 mi (2300 km) from North to South. The total area underwater covered by the Great Barrier Reef or the Marine Park sums up to about 132973.6 sq. mi (344400 sq. km), and 80% of the corals in the reef grow in shallow inshore areas. An entire marine and aquatic ecosystem depend on the Great Barrier Reef, so the highest altitude of the reef is not more than the low tide limit. However, corals need sunlight to grow, so the lowest depth doesn’t usually extend more than 492 ft (150 m) in the deep oceanic areas.The area of the 2900 individual reefs in the Great Barrier Reef varies a lot, starting from 0.004-38.6 sq. mi (1-10000 ha). The structure, shape, and form of these individual reefs are quite diverse. Two main classes of reefs are found here - first, the elongated growth of the reefs where the water currents are strong compose wall reefs, and second, the radial growth of the reefs compose patch or platform reefs. There’s another kind of reef that can be found there, the fringing reefs. These reefs grow on the subtidal rocks of the continental islands or the mainland coast. The typical climate of the Great Barrier Reef is tropical. The climate is influenced by the subtropical high-pressure zone in the winter months and the equatorial low-pressure zone in the summer months. The coral reef is situated between the South Pacific open oceans and continental Australia, so the climate is usually influenced by both. On the inner reefs, spawning occurs in October, and it happens in November and December in the outer reefs.Significance Of The Great Barrier ReefWhen climate change is destroying nature, we should know the significance of the Great Barrier Reef. It’s important to know how it’s cleaning the ocean, providing countless marine animals a home, protecting coastlines from erosion, and more. Here are a few reasons and uses of the reef that will tell you how much the world will be affected if the reef ever dies.Cleans the ocean waters: a lot of corals and sponges of the sponge gardens are filter feeders of the ocean. This means that the living coral eats away the particulate matter, meaning the pollutants that do not dissolve into the ocean. This keeps the ocean free of pollution.A safe haven for many animals: the coral reef acts as the perfect home to more than 600 different corals, 1500 species of fish, more than 100 species of sharks, 30 species of dolphins and whales, six out of the total seven marine turtle species, some sea snake species and countless aquatic microorganisms or tiny creatures.Helps the tourism industry: the reef helps with the livelihoods of many people, like the fishing industry, the tourism industry, and more. Every year, approximately five million people visit the reef. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park generates about $6 billion each year to the Australian economy.Absorbs carbon dioxide: corals don’t absorb carbon dioxide themselves. It actually gets absorbed by the algae that lives on corals. Coral polyps feed on these algae and deposit those carbons as limestone in the water. This is how corals help in climate change by absorbing carbon dioxide.Medical research: scientists have been researching marine animals of the reef, like clams, to study their aging process, and other animals to study antibacterial and antiviral properties. They have researched the chemical compounds of the reef and utilized them to develop new medicines for heart disease, asthma, cancer, arthritis, and more.Protects the coastlines: the reef itself, along with 39 species of mangroves in and adjacent to the reef, forms a barrier to the coastlines. Hence, when natural disasters, like storms or life-threatening waves, come, the reef acts as a buffer and saves the coastal Australian states, towns, and cities.UNESCO Status Of The Great Barrier ReefUNESCO gave the Great Barrier Reef the World Heritage Area status in 1981. The reef fulfills the Criterion (vii) for upholding beauty, Criterion (viii) for holding the history of a large ecosystem, Criterion (ix) for having an ongoing biological evolution, and Criterion (x) for being home to countless living beings.Criterion (vii) of UNESCO’S selection criteria demands a place to have a value in beauty, and the Great Barrier Reef undoubtedly provides that. It is not only extraordinarily beautiful and one of the seven natural wonders; it’s also one of the very few structures visible from outer space. The coral reef includes more than 900 islands, and the beaches, greenery, mountains, animals like butterflies, birds, turtles, and more only add to the reef’s beauty. Even the marine habitats are home to countless soft and hard corals and fish of all shapes, sizes, and colors.The Great Barrier Reef upholds the Criterion (viii) of UNESCO’S selection criteria by holding the history of evolution for thousands of years. The reef has experienced at least four interglacial and glacial events. When sea levels increased, the corals, cays, and islands grew. When sea levels dropped, as the reef came out of the water, the beauty became visible to all. All these affected the ecosystem, geomorphological, and geological evolution in the reef, and the cores of many old corals hold the proof inside them.The Great Barrier Reef also upholds the Criterion (ix) of UNESCO’S selection criteria by having an ongoing biological, geological, and geomorphic process. The reef doesn’t only sustain marine life; the islands hold terrestrial lives as well, and that too for thousands of years. The proof of this fact can be easily seen in the old hard corals and the fauna around them. Additionally, they are also proofs of still ongoing accretion and erosion of coral cays, sandbanks, and coral reefs.The Great Barrier Reef upholds the Criterion (x) of UNESCO’S selection criteria by being a home to thousands of marine and terrestrial species of animals and plants, and some of them have great conservational significance. The reefs have 1500 fish species, 400 corals species, 39 mangroves species, 30 dolphins and whales species, 17 sea snakes species, six out of the total seven marine turtle species, 242 birds species, including 22 seabirds species, many seagrass species at the seafloor, and world’s largest population of dugong, a threatened species. These reefs serve as an important and perfect environment for breeding many of these species as well.How Old Is The Great Barrier Reef In 2021Coral reefs have been on earth for more than 500 million years. However, the Great Barrier Reef is actually younger in that respect at the age of about 500,000 years. The constant erosion and accretion of coral reefs mean that the recent form of the reef is only about 8000 years old.The Great Barrier Reef of today sits on the remains of what was once known as the Great Dividing Range. The Great Dividing Range was a large mountain system that went under the water. In the beginning, corals started to form around and at the bases of these mountains, which back then were actually continental islands. As the water level rose and started to cover the mountains, in need of proper sunlight to grow, the corals started to creep up as well. Eventually, the range entirely drowned other than a few places here and there that became atolls, barrier reefs, and small islands of today. For example, the Whitsunday Islands are actually one of the mountain tops of long-lost range.The current form of the reef is about 8000 years old. Yet, some structures among these could still be a few million years old. These structures are living proof of coral growth, changing weather patterns. Scientists study samples of these to track major climatic events that may have happened in the past, the evolving state of global warming, and more.After the end of the earth’s last Ice Age, the corals of the world perished. The coral needs sunlight to grow, and rising sea levels and the sediments of the newly inundated land that came with it blocked sunlight, but the corals survived. According to research, the reef has gone through five such events in the past and survived. The reef is going through a threatening event at this moment as well. The rising sea level, along with the increasing heat, is harming the corals. The rising sea temperatures have triggered a mass coral bleaching event. In the hottest year of 2016, 67% of total corals around the world died, including about 435 mi (700 km) of the Great Barrier Reef. Research says that the entire reef might disappear by the year 2050.Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of interesting family-friendly facts for everyone to enjoy! If you liked our suggestions for 17 best of the Great Barrier Reef facts: explore details on coral reefs then why not take a look at average nail growth: curious facts on healthy nails revealed, or hands cave Argentina: curious facts on Cueva de las Manos.
The Great Barrier Reef is the world’s largest reef system.
