An atoll is formed from an island, but it isn't entirely an island. It's a coral reef that makes the different. The reef grows in a ring around the island and the island erodes, until little if any of it is above the surface of the water and the coral reef remains.
Islands are any small body of land surrounded by water. Islands in the middle of the ocean are usually volcanic and islands in lakes and near continents are usually just areas of the continental shelf surrounding the continent with a higher elevation.
To actually answer your question, the KEY difference is the reef.
They are both related to volcanic activity. In the case of the Hawaiian island chain this is caused by a mantle hotspot leading to significant volcanism creating the volcanoes that form the island chain. In the case of an atoll these form around older extinct oceanic volcanoes which are subsiding. The coral forms in a fringing ring in the shallows around the volcano and as it continues to subside, the coral continues to grow upwards until eventually the volcano subsides or is eroded to a depth below the surface leaving the ring of coral with a shallow lagoon in the centre known as an atoll.
atoll
Wake island is only 4. 063 square miles. It is halfway between Midway island and Guam. It is an atoll consisting of the three islets: WIlkos, Peale, and Wake.
An atoll is formed first as a reef that fringes a volcanic island. As the island sinks (after the volcanic activity has ceased and the crust has cooled, becoming denser), the reef continues to build upward, eventually ending up as a ring-shaped structure.
This is known as an atoll.
Laysan Island is a tiny Hawaiian atoll. It is northwest of the main Hawaiian Islands. Laysan is part of a protected wildlife sanctuary, and no animals live there.
bikini atoll
In the island of Bora Bora.
ATOLL
atoll
An atoll is an island of coral that partially or completely surrounds a lagoon.
A coral atoll.
It is called Green Island.
An atoll is formed from an island, but it isn't entirely an island. It's a coral reef that makes the different. The reef grows in a ring around the island and the island erodes, until little if any of it is above the surface of the water and the coral reef remains. Islands are any small body of land surrounded by water. Islands in the middle of the ocean are usually volcanic and islands in lakes and near continents are usually just areas of the continental shelf surrounding the continent with a higher elevation. To actually answer your question, the KEY difference is the reef.
An atoll is a coral island that encircles a lagoon partially or completely. Yaren, is a district and constituency of the Pacific nation of Nauru. It is the capital of Nauru. Yaren does not have an atoll, but instead is a part of an island in Micronesia.
The largest coral atoll in the world is the Kwajalein Atoll.The largest atoll in land area is Christmas Island.
atoll
Bikini atoll, USEniwetok atoll, USChristmas Island, UK