Jesse--Great+Barrier+Reef

The Great Barrier Reef The Great Barrier Reef is truly a beauty! It is more than 1,200 miles in length and covers more than 100,000 square miles which would cover about half of Texas. Some may think it is just one giant coral reef, but it’s actually made up of about 3,000 reefs that range in size from barely an acre to 25,000 acres. The vast Great Barrier Reef lays to the Northeast and extends to the East of Australia (Life). It is the biggest living thing in the Pacific Ocean! The Great Barrier Reef holds many forms of sea life and is very important. In this one area thousands of sea life like mollusks and fish live here (Life). It is also another wonder of the world to be completely deciphered. Science can study the Great Barrier Reef to see how it came to be or got so big. It is an important part of the earth and is an ecological system. In 1969 the Great Barrier Reef was established and was a complete and total mystery at the time. Captain James Cook found it by accident when his ship landed in Queensland, Australia in 1770. Some people believe that the area where the Great Barrier Reef is was a spawning ground for coral a very long time ago then it grew and grew, but other than that it is still a mystery (Life). Why they spawned there is unknown. More history of its beginning is being studied (Life). Since its discovery in 1770, much has happened. The coral in the Great Barrier Reef has spawned, died, grown over the dead, and has become much bigger. Pollution came into play for the Great Barrier Reef and has killed many fish, mollusks and coral. The crown-of-thorns sea star and man have destroyed much of its humble and delicate ecosystem. Those are the 2 main predators for the coral in the Great Barrier Reef. Even though man has slowed down its rampage through the Great Barrier Reef damage is still being done. It is still being harmed by pollution and attacked by the crown-of-thorns sea star but hopefully in the future that will stop (Life). Recently it has started to be better taken care of. Farm run-off, road salt, and other pollutants are still killing everything in the water. The Great Barrier Reef has grown even more even with the pollution in the water, which should stop anyway. The sea life in it is decreasing due to pollution, and increasing because of mating seasons (Life). See how pollution is killing it and that could affect the future of the Great Barrier Reef. Now, today, the Great Barrier Reef protected but still being harmed, and now it is very popular. It is a sea life sanctuary today, but pollution is still killing everything! Scientist is studying it today in a way that doesn’t harm the environment. For Australia and everyone else in the world, it is a major tourist attraction. One really cool fact about the Great Barrier Reef is you can see it from… outer space (Life)! The Great Barrier Reef is a very important and cool place today and it should be even better in the future. Today the Great Barrier is a strange wonderful beauty, but in the future it will be a perfect habitat. It will grow even more and become and better place for sea life to live. All pollution be stopped or greatly decreased. Sea life population increase and find new species of sea life to add to the thousands of species already known (Life). That is what should happen for the Great Barrier Reef in the future. The Great Barrier Reef is an awesome and great place. On the way it’s going it should last for a long time or if the pollution increases it will end sooner than it should, and believed to be 20 million years old but discovered only be 600,000(Life). Man needs to stop leaving his ecological footprint or else most of every environment in the world will die. The Great Barrier Reef will be a beauty forever and will become even better.