WHAT ARE CORALS ?

• Corals are marine invertebrate animals that belong to a large group of animals
called Cnidaria.
• These animals live in compact colonies.
• Other animals in this group include jellyfish and sea anemones.
• Corals can exist as individual polyps or in colonies and communities that
contain hundreds of thousands of polyps.
• Corals are divided into two groups – Hard corals and soft corals, hard
corals are the reef building corals
 CORAL REEFS
• The accumulation of coralline material left from the bodies of coral animals
results in the formation of coral reef.
• They are found in the oceans of most tropical areas of the world between the
latitudes 30 degree North and 30 degree South.
• The stony hard corals are mainly responsible for reef building.
• The coralline sponges, coralline algae and byozoans are equally
important for reef building.
• They secrete calcium carbonate, which acts like cement, binding
together coral, sand and pieces of rubble to form a more solid structure.
• Coral reefs are the home to a number of sea animals such as fishes and
sea anemones and these animals make the reefs look like colorful sea
gardens.
FORMATION OF CORAL REEFS

• Coral reefs are one of the oldest ecosystems on Earth.

• They first appeared around 500 million years ago.
• Coral reefs are formed by colonies of tiny sea organisms called
coral polyps.
• Coral polyps were the organisms that first colonized the shallow
coastal waters around islands.
• They rapidly multiplied and grew faster along the edges of the
islands where the currents were the strongest.
There are three types of coral reefs:
Fringing reef, Barrier reef and Atoll reefs

FRINGING REEF

• Fringing reef grows in shallow water.

• The flat area behind the reef front is called the 'reef flat'.
• This flat is composed of coral rubble, sand and some living coral. It extends up to
the shore.
• Large changes in salinity, temperature and lot of sedimentation reduce the growth
of the coral.
• At low tide, a large part of the flat is exposed, as the water is very shallow. The
growth of the coral is maximum in strong current.
 BARRIER REEFS

• Unlike a fringing reef, a wide lagoon separates the barrier reef

from the shore.
• A barrier reef also has a reef flat behind the reef front.
• Corals grow well in the lagoon and form an inner reef or table
reef.
• A barrier reef may consist of a long series of reefs separated by
channels of open water.
ATOLL REEFS

• They are ring-shaped reefs found in the middle of the ocean.

• Atolls usually form when islands surrounded by fringing reefs
sink into the or the sea level rises around them.