What is a backreef?
The back reef includes the shallow lagoon between the shore and coral reef. This habitat includes small patches of corals, sea grass beds, and sand plains. The back reef is often warmer because of the shallow depth, reduced water flow, and protection from waves. Salinity can also fluctuate due to fresh water inputs.
What are the 4 types of reefs?
Scientists generally agree on four different coral reef classifications: fringing reefs, barrier reefs, atolls, and patch reefs. Fringing reefs grow near the coastline around islands and continents. They are separated from the shore by narrow, shallow lagoons. Fringing reefs are the most common type of reef.
What are the three types of reefs?
The three main types of coral reefs are fringing, barrier, and atoll. Schools of colorful pennantfish, pyramid, and milletseed butterflyfish live on an atoll reef in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. The most common type of reef is the fringing reef. This type of reef grows seaward directly from the shore.
What does bioerosion mean?
Bioerosion refers to the removal of rock by direct organic activity.
What are reef flats?
A coral reef flat may be defined as an extensive shallow area of the reef, bounded seaward by the reef crest (the crest being the transitional area between the flat and the upper reef slope), and leeward by the back reef (cf.
What is a fore reef?
Definition. The forereef is the outside part of a reef seaward of the reef crest (or reef edge) facing open sea.
What is a back reef slope?
Back Reef Slope Back Reef Slope is a complex, interior – often gently sloping – reef zone. occurring behind the Reef Flat. Of variable depth (but deeper than Reef Flat and more sloped), it is sheltered, sediment-dominated and often punctuated by coral outcrops.
What are reef crests?
The reef crest, or algal ridge, is the highest point of the reef, and is almost always exposed at low tide. The reef crest is exposed to the full fury of incoming waves, and living corals are practically nonexistent here.
What are the parts of a reef?
The major divisions common to most reefs, as they move seaward from the shore, are the reef flat, reef crest or algal ridge, buttress zone, and seaward slope. Corals usually develop into one of three characteristic structures: fringing reefs, barrier reefs or atolls. Learn more and view a larger image.
What is an inner reef?
Inner Reef The inner or fringing reef are parts of the reef closer to the mainland or islands. Inner reef sites are generally made of more soft corals which smaller fish species call home. Seagrass meadows, important feeding grounds for turtles and dugongs, are often found around island in the inner reef.
What is the difference between a coral and a coral reef?
Coral is a live animal while reef is a physical structure. Reef is the habitat of the corals, which has been created through the secretions of coral polyps over many generations. Corals are always live while a reef could be resulted through either biotic or abiotic processes.
Where is Ribbon reef?
The Ribbon Reefs are the long, skinny reefs that lie between Lizard Island and Cooktown on the edge of the continental shelf of the northern GBR.