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The Great Barrier Reef is made up of coral which depends on being immersed in a marine environment. Therefore, apart from where the Reef emerges as atolls and islands, it is below sea level.

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Yes plankton live everywhere where there is water.

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Pollution can disrupt and destroy the precious ecosystem that is the Great Barrier Reef, depending on the type of pollution. Faecal matter can poison certain organisims living within this ecosystem. Toxic chemicals can kill most organisms living on the Great Barrier Reef, such as mercury. Increased water temperature is also considered a pollution, caused from global warming, and can speed up the occurance of coral bleaching of the GBR's corals.

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The Great Barrier Reef is most commonly used for tourism, for activities such as tours (including in glass-bottomed boats), snorkelling and scuba diving.

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The Great Barrier Reef poses unseen dangers for navigators. Sharp rocks and corals lie beneath the surface of the water, often hidden, and ships can be damaged on these. It is also particularly difficult for ships to navigate between the many coral reefs.

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It is made up of coral.

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Considered one of the great natural wonders of the world, the Great Barrier Reef sits off the northeast coast of Australia. It is located in the Coral Sea and extends for a length of around 2300 km down the coast of the eastern state of Queensland. It is actually a series of reefs and atolls, with its northern end just south of Papua New Guinea. It is the largest coral reef in the world. Australia has almost one-fifth of the world's reef area most of which is located in the Great Barrier Reef. It is the largest structure on earth created by living things, hosts millions of ocean-living creatures, and can be seen from space.

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The Great Barrier Reef brings in about $1 billion in revenue from tourism.

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The Great Barrier Reef is shrinking, but it is unknown by how much. Climate scientists who subscribe to the theory of anthropogenic global warming (i.e. caused by man's activities) predict that the Great Barrier Reef may lose up to 95% of its coral by the middle of the current century. Although the coastline parallel to the Great Barrier Reef has been settled by Europeans for less then 200 years, these scientists believe that the Reef has been shrinking by 20% every 100 years.

Climate scientists who subscribe to the theory that global warming is cyclical perhaps have a less drastic view, as they believe that the coral will regenerate, as it has apparently done so in the past. It is a very emotive topic.

However, it should be noted that pollution and chemical runoff pose a very real threat to the reef. Mud and chemical runoff tend to limit the sunlight that reaches the coral, causing it to die off. Global warming issues aside, the Great Barrier Reef is most definitely shrinking.

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Australia

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Figures vary, but according to the Australian Institute of Marine Science, the Great Barrier Reef is approximately 2,300km long. It is located in the Coral Sea and lies parallel to the coast of Queensland. It is actually a series of reefs and atolls, with its northern end just south of Papua New Guinea, and its southern end near Lady Elliott Island, northeast of the city of Bundaberg. This is the equivalent of about 1,430 miles.

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Our world, Our future, Our reef

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It most likely won't be helped, but it will be destroyed by a special type of starfish if we can't kill them first. Do a Google� Images� search for "Thorn Of Crowns Starfish, Great Barrier Reef" Or do a normal Google� search, if you don't get any images. Try separating them. The Starfish is only able to be killed by a snail, one that has a harpoon filled with poison at the tip. This doesn't really answer your question, but it tells you how to find the answers. Good luck, my friend. In many countries they are sinking old ships so plankton will grow on it and try to bring back the natural order of the oceans. Depending on what the trouble is you are worried about. As for the star fish problem we can't really fix that too easily. We would have to start hunting starfish, which for some reason environmentalists don't like.

If your concern is that the reef will die as the water level rises then you shouldn't fear. Coral grow where they can survive. Meaning they won't be growing downwards into the colder water. They naturally grow upwards towards the heat of the sunlight. This means as the ocean levels rise the reef will grow upwards too. Thus our beloved reef that has wrecked many a ship is saved, by itself.

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Ultimo NSW 2007 More than ten of the world's major cities have pledged their support for Earth Hour 2008, the WWF led-climate change initiative that has gained worldwide momentum. Earth Hour will take place at 8pm on Saturday March 29 next year with more cities expected to sign up in coming weeks. Sydney, host of the inaugural Earth Hour campaign held on March 31 this year, will be joined in 2008 by Melbourne, Brisbane, Chicago (USA), Copenhagen (Denmark), Toronto (Canada), Manila (Philippines) and Tel Aviv (Israel) and other cities in turning off lights for one hour in a global demonstration of the world's readiness to tackle climate change head on. Continue reading 'Earth Hour 2008 launches'

Climate Solutions is the report of WWF's Energy Taskforce which was set up in December 2005. More than 100 scientists and experts contributed their knowledge.

WWF-Australia's report on our conservation achievements and financial status for the year ending 30 June 2007.

Jan 04 The Japanese government has agreed to drop plans to hunt humpback whales during this year's annual whaling expedition in the Antarctic.

Dec 15

More than ten of the world's major cities today pledged their support for Earth Hour 2008, the WWF led-climate change initiative that has gained worldwide momentum. Earth Hour will take place at 8pm on Saturday March 29 next year with more cities expected to sign up in coming weeks.

= Great Barrier Reef = The Great Barrier Reef includes over 2,900 reefs, around 940 islands and cays, and stretches 2,300 kms along the Queensland coastline. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park is 345,000 km2, that's larger than the entire area of the UK and Ireland combined! Bullray swimming in the Great Barrier Reef

© WWF-Canon/Jürgen FREUND The reef is immensely diverse with 1,500 species of fish, 359 types of hard coral, one third of the world's soft corals, 175 bird species, six of the world's seven species of threatened marine turtle and more than 30 species of marine mammals including vulnerable dugongs. Add to that stunning marine life are 5,000 to 8,000 molluscs and thousands of different sponges, worms, crustaceans, 800 species of echinoderms (starfish, sea urchins) and 215 bird species, of which 29 are seabirds. The Great Barrier Reef is listed under all four natural World Heritage criteria for its outstanding universal value. Protecting the reef has benefits beyond conservation - it is also an investment that helps provide security for coastal communities and provides significant benefits to the Australian economy. Reef industries, which are reliant on a healthy environment in which to operate, contributed approximately $5.8 billion to the Australian economy in 2004 and employed about 63,000 people. Historically, the Reef has been regarded as a well-protected, pristine wonderland - a place of delicate corals, abundant fish life and a haven for other marine life. As scientists came to understand more about the reef's complexities, a different picture emerged - overfishing, land-based pollution and coral bleaching exacerbated by increased sea temperatures due to global warming are all impacting upon its natural wealth. Immediate action was required to protect the reef because only 4.6% of the reef was fully protected. As a result of public campaigning and pressure from WWF, the Australian Government committed to a plan to protect 33% of the reef. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park (GBRMP) zoning plan was implemented in 2004. Its most significant feature is a network of marine sanctuaries that stretch from the Park's northernmost to southern boundaries. This is the world's largest network of marine sanctuaries and covers over a third of the Marine Park - protecting over 11 million hectares. Scientists have identified 70 different distinct biological regions in the GBRMP, representing the entire range of its plants and animals. A minimum percentage of each biological region is protected from fishing in order to maintain the health and resilience of the ecosystem and to protect the full range of biodiversity in the marine park. Crown-of-thorns starfish - one of the threats to the Great Barrier Reef

© WWF-Canon/Jürgen FREUND The amount of sediment flowing from the land into the marine park from its catchment area has quadrupled over the past 150 years due largely to grazing and cropping expansion in the catchment and loss of native vegetation and wetlands. The reef has experienced two mass coral bleaching events - in 1998 and 2002. Bleaching was more severe in 2002, with aerial surveys finding that almost 60% of reefs were bleached to some degree. Not only is the reef subject to high levels of fishing pressure, other fishing practices such as seafloor trawling for prawns are still permitted in over half of the marine park, resulting in untargeted fish capture (by-catch) and destruction of the seafloor. Maintaining a well funded, enforced and monitored network of marine sanctuaries throughout the GBRMP is essential to protect representative areas, as well as areas that are of special or unique biological value. Healthy levels of fishing effort in the marine park are needed to safeguard the Reef's biodiversity. The joint Australian and Queensland governments' Reef Water Quality Protection Plan confirms that effective action must be taken now to reduce land-based sources of sediment, nutrient and pesticide pollution further damaging in-shore reefs. The future impacts of global warming must be included in government plans regarding the Reef at a local level, and action must be taken at a national level to reduce CO2 emissions.

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yes. but you will find that the deeper the area is, the higher and less active the volcanoes are. in the great barrier reef there are some volcanoes that go up to 50 feet tall

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A barrier reef is a reef which lies parallel to, or near, a coastline, but separated from the coastline by a region of water too deep for coral to grow.

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The Great Barrier Reef was formed by nature, with hundreds of years of living coral building upon the skeletons of other coral.

The corals that build reefs are not single animals. Coral is made up of colonies comprised of many individual animals called polyps, which join together. Coral polyps are a little like sea anemones, having tentacles that extend outwards, but they are not actually anemones.

Corals which create coral reefs have a symbiotic relationship with algae known as zooxanthellae. This algae, which lives within the tissues of the coral, causes a photosynthetic reaction which enables the polyps to make skeletons about three times faster in the light than in the dark. This means the corals deposit skeletons faster than the environment can remove it, and these skeletons build upon each other over time, creating a coral reef.

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A coral reef is a colony of corals. A coral reef can be formed on rock rubble, but old established coral reefs are actually structured out of dead coral. This is one of the reasons it takes so long for a reef to form. Some corals may life for tens or even hundreds of years before they die and allow another coral to grow on top of their skeleton.

There are many types of coral reefs, but the real difference is that coral is what makes up a coral reef.

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Yes, many types of shrimp live on the great barrier reef.

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No. Australia does not have alligators. Crocodiles,however, are plentiful throughout Australia's northern tropical regions, including some of the coral atolls of the Great Barrier Reef, and the estuaries and rivers which parallel the reef.

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At its most southern end, the Great Barrier Reef is about 200km from the coast of Queensland. Its distance from the shore becomes less, the further north it goes. By the time it is parallel to Cairns, it is quite close, within a few hundred metres, and many tours to the Reef operate from Cairns.

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"it is a great furnace of wrath" is a metaphor. The pronoun it is used in place of Hell, so Hell is being compared to a great furnace of wrath.