What is a platform reef?

What is a platform reef?

Platform reef, also called patch reef, a coral reef found on continental shelves and characterized by a primarily radial growth pattern. A platform reef may or may not lie behind a barrier reef and may undergo elongation if established on a sandbank.

How are platform reefs formed?

Coral reefs begin to form when free-swimming coral larvae attach to submerged rocks or other hard surfaces along the edges of islands or continents. As the corals grow and expand, reefs take on one of three major characteristic structures — fringing, barrier or atoll.

What are the 4 types of coral reefs?

Scientists generally agree on four different coral reef classifications: fringing reefs, barrier reefs, atolls, and patch reefs.

• Fringing reefs grow near the coastline around islands and continents.
• Barrier reefs also parallel the coastline but are separated by deeper, wider lagoons.

What is Isreef?

A reef is a ridge or shoal of rock, coral or similar relatively stable material, lying beneath the surface of a natural body of water. Many reefs result from natural, abiotic processes—deposition of sand, wave erosion planing down rock outcrops, etc.

What are the 3 types of reefs?

The three main types of coral reefs are fringing, barrier, and atoll. Schools of colorful pennantfish, pyramid, and milletseed butterflyfish live on an atoll reef in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. The most common type of reef is the fringing reef. This type of reef grows seaward directly from the shore.

What is the name of the largest barrier reef?

the Great Barrier Reef
Stretching for 1,429 miles over an area of approximately 133,000 square miles , the Great Barrier Reef is the largest coral reef system in the world. The reef is located off the coast of Queensland, Australia, in the Coral Sea.

What are Zooxanthellae and why are they important to corals?

Tiny plant cells called zooxanthellae live within most types of coral polyps. They help the coral survive by providing it with food resulting from photosynthesis. In turn, the coral polyps provide the cells with a protected environment and the nutrients they need to carry out photosynthesis.

What are the 3 largest coral reefs?

When diving for a great catch, check out these largest reefs in the world.

• Great Barrier Reef, Australia.
• Red Sea Coral Reef, Israel, Egypt and Djibouti.
• New Caledonia Barrier Reef, South Pacific.
• MesoAmerican Barrier Reef, Atlantic Ocean.
• Florida Reef, Florida.
• Andros Coral Reef, Bahamas.
• Saya Del Malha, Indian Ocean.

Are reefs alive?

Although most people know that coral reefs are found throughout the world in tropical oceans, many do not realize that these reefs are actually living animal colonies, and that they are very important in the tropical ocean ecosystem. The reef is made up of small colonial animals, called coral polyps.

Is reef land or water?

Coral Reef. Ecosystems are sometimes classified into terrestrial, or land-based, and aquatic. This aquatic ecosystem is a coral reef off the shores of Papua New Guinea in the Pacific Ocean. Coral reefs are one of the most diverse and delicate ecosystems on the planet.

What is a coral island called?

An atoll is a ring-shaped coral reef, island, or series of islets. The atoll surrounds a body of water called a lagoon.

Is coral a reef?

A coral reef is an underwater ecosystem characterized by reef-building corals. Reefs are formed of colonies of coral polyps held together by calcium carbonate. They are most commonly found at shallow depths in tropical waters, but deep water and cold water coral reefs exist on smaller scales in other areas.

What kind of coral is a platform reef?

Platform reef, also called patch reef, a coral reef found on continental shelves and characterized by a primarily radial growth pattern.

How long is the platform reef closed off?

This platform reef is closed off from the surrounding ocean for 3-5 hours during each low tide (Ludington, 1979). Both are platform reefs, consisting of a shallow lagoon surrounded by a continuous rim of coral comprising distinctive reef flat, crest, and slope habitats.

Can a platform reef be behind a barrier reef?

A platform reef may or may not lie behind a barrier reef and may undergo elongation if established on a sandbank. Reefs grow actively outward as well as upward, especially in the stable conditions of a continental shelf.

How is the shape of a platform reef determined?

Platform reef. Any given reef, having depth and temperature fixed by its location, will have its shape determined by the direction and force of the water currents that bring food and by the shape of the base on which it grows. Where the forces of growth are equal in all directions, radial expansion results in platformlike reefs.