In the News
-
Forbes Tuesday, Nov. 15, 2022
Scientists Say Sea-Level Changes Formed Australia's Great Barrier Reef
Stretching along more than 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) of Australia's eastern coast is one of the world's most famous natural wonders - the Great Barrier Reef is the single largest structure made by living organisms on the planet.
Little is known about the formation of this UNESCO World Heritage-listed site, apart that the growth of the corals making up the reef needed a tectonically stable underground over the past 2.6 million years ago - Australia, being a very old continent located inside its own tectonic plate, providing such a stable environment.
But new findings by Utah State University geoscientist Tammy Rittenour and an international team of colleagues point to a modern-day concern that could have initiated the iconic landforms' beginnings some 800,000 years ago: sea-level rise.