Page 135 - Super Earth Encyclopedia

Sheltered from big A fierce hunter,
ocean waves, the the peacock mantis
reef flat teems with shrimp lives in the
vividly colored fish. crevices of the reef.
Massive stony corals
form the reef crest
facing the open ocean.

CORAL ROCK

The continental bedrock lies
deep below the reef’s living surface.
The rest of the reef is made of coral
rock—a type of limestone formed
from the star-shaped stony skeletons
of billions of long-dead corals.
The living reef grows on top
of this mass of dead coral.

INTO THE BLUE

At the outer edge of the WATER WORLD
reef, the coral forms a steep
wall, and the shallow reef
flat gives way to deep blue
The deep reef wall is ocean. Off the northern
made up of dead coral Great Barrier Reef, the
that thrived thousands
of years ago, when the ocean depth drops down 133
sea level was lower. to at least 6,560 ft (2,000 m).

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