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The Great Barrier Reef is the world's biggest reef scheme poised of over 2,900 character reefs and 900 islands stretching for over 2,600 kilometres (1,600 mi) over an area of approximately 344,400 cube kilometres (133,000 sq mi).The reef is situated in the Coral Sea, off the seashore of Queensland in north-east Australia.
The Great Barrier Reef can be seen from external gap and is the world's biggest solitary construction made by living organisms. This reef arrangement is collected of and built by billions of tiny organisms, known as coral polyps. This reef supports a wide diversity of life, and was selected as a World Heritage Site in 1981. CNN labeled it one of the seven natural wonders of the world.The Queensland National Trust named it a state icon of Queensland.
A huge part of the reef is confined by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, which helps to edge the impact of individual use, such as fishing and tourism. Other environmental pressures on the reef and its ecological unit include runoff, type of weather change accompanied by group coral bleaching, and cyclic residents outbreaks of the crown-of-thorns starfish.
The Great Barrier Reef has extended been known to and used by the indigenous Australian and Torres passage Islander peoples, and is an significant part of restricted groups' cultures and spirituality. The reef is a very popular destination for tourists, especially in the Whitsunday Islands and Cairns regions. Tourism is an important economic activity for the region, generating A$ 1 billion per year.
The Great Barrier Reef is a different excellence of the East Australian Cordillera division. It includes the slighter Murray Islands. It reaches from Torres Strait (between Bramble Cay, its northernmost island, and the south coast of Papua New Guinea) in the north to the unnamed passage between Lady Elliot Island (its southernmost island) and Fraser Island in the south. Lady Elliot Island is located 1,915 km (1,190 mi) southeast of Bramble Cay as the crow flies.
Australia has stimulated northwards at a speed of 7 cm (2.8 in) per year, preliminary during the Cainozoic. Eastern Australia experienced a period of tectonic uplift, which moved the drainage divide in Queensland 400 km (250 mi) inland. Also during this time, Queensland experienced volcanic eruptions leading to central and shield volcanoes and basalt flows. Some of these granitic outcrops have become high islands. After the Coral Sea Basin formed, coral reefs began to grow in the Basin, but until about 25 million years ago, northern Queensland was still in temperate waters south of the tropics—too cool to support coral growth. The Great Barrier Reef's development history is complex; after Queensland drifted into tropical waters, it was largely influenced by reef growth and decline as sea level changed.
They can augment in thickness by 1 to 3 centimeters (0.39 to 1.2 in) per year, and raise vertically anywhere from 1 to 25 cm (0.39 to 9.8 in) per year; however, they grow only above a distance downward of 150 metres (490 ft) due to their need for sunlight, and cannot grow above sea level.When Queensland edged into stifling waters 24 million years ago, some coral grew, but a sedimentation regime quickly urbanized with wearing down of the Great Dividing Range; creating river deltas, oozes and turbidites, unsuitable conditions for coral growth. 10 million years ago, the sea level significantly lowered, which added enabled sedimentation.s The reef's substrate may have needed to build up from the sediment until its edge was too far away for suspended sediments to inhibit coral growth. In addition, approximately 400,000 years ago there was a particularly warm interglacial period with higher sea levels and a 4 °C (7 °F) water temperature change.
