Coral

Coral Reefs

There are many kinds of coral reef in the world. Of them there are three basic kinds of coral reefs. The first is called a fringing reef. A fringing reef is a reef that grows against an island going seaward and sloping sharply toward the sea floor. Another type of basic reef is a barrier reef. To most people a barrier reef is the most familiar due to the popularity of the Great Barrier Reef, which is a located in the Caribbean and is also a huge tourist attraction. A barrier reef is a reef which is an offshore coral reef ridge, which somewhat parallels the shore. The last basic kind of coral reef is called an atoll reef. An atoll reef is an annular reef that develops at or near the surface of the sea when islands that are surrounded by reefs subside.

Coral reefs are very colorful and attractive to the eye. The disadvantage of this is that they make huge tourist attractions for themselves. You may have heard of the Great Barrier Reef, which is one such example. The Great Barrier Reef gets approximately 2-million tourists each year (Great). When people go to visit a coral reef they usually always try to take some of it back with them. Touching reefs even slightly can damage them. The problem with this is it cuts back on the growth of coral and it has to work harder to catch up. Not only that but it destroys friendly algae (there is also bad algae) on the coral that you break off. The algae helps the coral grow (Weiss).

There are many other things in the world that are damaging coral reefs. Such as global warming, Global warming has been an issue for a long time. As long as we keep on polluting the earth the global warming issue will only get worse. Global warming has been heating oceans all around the world for the past ten years ("Coral"). (Even though global warming has been going on for a lot longer than that, I say ten years because it has only just begun to make a significant change within the past ten years. The warm oceans that have been feeding hurricanes which in turn are destroying 80-90 percent in Indonesia alone("Change"). When a hurricane goes through a coral zone it kills everything (even the pollups that keep the coral healthy) so that the coral turns white in a process called "bleaching"("Coral")

Global warming is not the only issue that threaten coral reefs. Over fishing in many fish populated areas