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The largest coral reef on the planet is the Great Barrier Reef which is located in coast of Queensland, Australia. The area is as big as 348,700 in kilometer and 216672.135 in miles. The Great Barrier Reef is relatively young with only 8000 years even though coral reefs have been around for over 500 million years. However, believe it or not, the coral reef is known to be only 1% of whole ocean. Still, coral reefs are home to almost 25% of all marine species.
Coral reefs are colorful by nature. Corals and algae have a mutualistic relationship. Corals provide protected same environment and compounds necessary for photosynthesis. But algae which lives inside the coral, produces oxygen and helps to remove wastes (corals do not eat algae).
There are mainly three types of coral reefs. The three are fringing reefs, barrier reefs, and coral atolls. Fringing reefs grow near coastlines around the continent. It has an entirely shallow back-reef zone or none. Fringing reef is the most common type of coral reefs and we see. Barrier reef is parallel to shores and separated by a lagoon. Coral atolls abbreviated to atolls is ring shaped coral reefs that creates protected lagoons.
Fringing Reef
Barrier Reef
Coral Atolls
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