The Great Barrier Reef is a place that is immensely large structure built by living organisms. It is situated in Australia on its North Easter coast. The creator of this large island involves human beings, hydrocorals and coral polyps of small size and its skeletons. They are merged together with the soft lingers of microorganisms and coralline algae. This splendid place is more than 1250 miles or two thousand kilometers long.

It is larger than any island of the Great Britain. It forms a shape of a snake that is located along the coast of the Australia continent. It is situated nearly parallel to the coast of the State of Queensland. The distance between them is approximately ranging from ten to one hundred miles from the shore line.

The reef is quite outstanding feature of the earth that its images are shot by the satellites. It is located on the continental ledge which forms the boundary of the landmass of Australia. This is a situation wherein the ocean water is quite clear and warm. In the edging sides of its continental ledge and the reef, the ledge forms an array of sharp cliffs which falls to immense depths holding colder water.

The temperate that is needed by the coral polyps is more than seventy degree F and the water temperature usually reaches the level of one hundred degree F. the minute coral polyps started created great reef in the Miocene Epoch which started around twenty three point seven million years ago. It has already ended at about five point three million years ago. The continental ledge has collapsed quite continually after the Miocene Epoch.

The reef in response to it has developed upward with the living counts in the warm and shallow water besides the surface. The live coral would not survive less than a depth level of about twenty five fathoms. They also depend on the salt content in the sea water. With the death of the polyps and hydro corals they got covered after merging by algae.

The spaces in the middle of the skeletons are packed in by the action of the waves. This has ultimately forced the other debris known as infill to get a comparatively solid accumulation at depth. The upper part of the reef is more wide and open. They are riddled with canyons, grottoes, holes filled with mollusks, caves and several other cavities.

They give breeding homes and natural homes to thousands of different sea life species. This reef is actually a string of two thousand nine hundred cays, reefs, inlets. It includes nine hundred islands, shoals, lagoons that are divided between the beaches with sand that is made of minced coral.

The Great Barrier Reef includes more than three hundred and fifty species of red and green algae and coral. The coral species population in the north side of the reef is more than the number of coral species originated by the whole Atlantic Ocean.