Colegiul Naţional “Coriolan Brediceanu” Lugoj

Lucrare de atestat

The Great Barrier Reef

Profesor coordonator:Popovici Violeta Candidat: Corcodel Cristian Laurenţiu 2014

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Contents: page

Cover………………………………………………………..1

Contents………………………………………………..........2

Rationale…………………………………………...………..3

Chapter one – Ecology ……………………………………..4

Chapter Two – Facts ……………………………………….5

Chapter Three – Environmental Threats …………………..8

Chapter Four - Diving the Great Barrier ………………….10

Chapter Five- History and evolution of the reef…………..12

Bibliography……………………………………………….15

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Rationale

The Great Barrier Reef is a gigantic ecosystem which traces back to approximately twenty million years ago. The history of the Great Barrier Reef is a long and diverse one, where many generations of coral have built a habitat that eventually was discovered and then later settled by humans.

One thing that has drawn me to become a fan of this ecosystem is the wide range of colors included in the structure. As a future visual artist,colors and variety attracted me in the World’s greatest natural reef.

Another thing that caught my eye was the peace and serenity of the place.I enjoy the sea of calmness represented by one of the most crowded life structures placed on Earth.Paradoxically,such a congested group of species gives me a feeling of harmony instead of the incompatibility others might perceive.

In addition,this is ,in my opinion ,a place to be seen by every human being who is attracted by beauty in its primordial state:nature.I would be honoured to have the opportunity to visit and dive to the reef and this is one of my lifelong dreams.

In conclusion,The Great Barrier Reef is one of the most fascinating World Heritage Sites and we should protect and respect it for the outstanding legacy of generations of plants and fish which cohabited in it.

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Chapter One - Ecology

Thirty species of whales, dolphins, and porpoises have been recorded in the Great Barrier Reef, including the dwarf minke whale, Indo-Pacific humpback dolphin, and the humpback whale. Large populations of dugongs live there. More than 1,500 fish species live on the reef, including the clownfish, red bass, red-throat emperor, and several species of snapper and coral trout. Forty-nine species mass spawn, while eighty-four other species spawn elsewhere in their range. Seventeen species of sea snake live on the Great Barrier Reef in warm waters up to 50 metres (160 ft) deep and are more common in the southern than in the northern section. None found in the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area are endemic, nor are any endangered.

The extent of coastal ecosystems – and the way they function – can have a big impact on the long-term health and resilience of the Great Barrier Reef.

There are 14 coastal ecosystems that are important to the function of the Reef: coral reefs, lagoon floor, islands, open water, seagrasses, coastline, estuaries, freshwater wetlands, forested floodplain, heath and shrublands, grass and sedgelands, woodlands, forests and rainforests.

Ecological functions

Coastal ecosystems provide a range of ecological services that support the Reef, including water distribution, food and habitat, and nutrient and chemical cycling.For example, many reef species use the catchment for some part of their lifecycle. Adult mangrove jacks live in the Reef, but as larvae they migrate through freshwater rivers and streams and have even been found more than 100 km inland.Barramundi also use floodplain habitats for parts of their life history.Poor water quality in these habitats affects the health, survival, growth and breeding of many species that live in the Great Barrier Reef.

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Chapter two - Facts

As the largest living structure on the planet, the Great Barrier Reef is incredibly rich and diverse.

Stretching 2300 kilometres, this natural icon is so large it can even be seen from outer space.

While it’s known mostly for its large maze of colourful reefs, its intricate architecture also provides a home for a huge number of plants and animals.

Some of these, such as turtles and crocodiles, have been around since prehistoric times and have changed little over the millennia. 

The breathtaking array of marine creatures includes 600 types of soft and hard corals, more than 100 species of jellyfish, 3000 varieties of molluscs, 500 species of worms, 1625 types of fish, 133 varieties of sharks and rays, and more than 30 species of whales and dolphins.

The Great Barrier Reef is also unique as it extends over 14 degrees of latitude, from shallow estuarine areas to deep oceanic waters.

Within this vast expanse are a unique range of ecological communities, habitats and species – all of which make the Reef one of the most complex natural ecosystems in the world.

The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park

covers 344,400 km2 in area includes the world’s largest coral reef ecosystem includes some 3000 coral reefs, 600 continental islands, 300 coral cays and about

150 inshore mangrove islands extends south from the northern tip of Queensland in north-eastern Australia to

just north of Bundaberg is between 60 and 250 kilometres in width

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has an average depth of 35 metres in its inshore waters, while on outer reefs, continental slopes extend down to depths of more than 2000 metres

was created in 1975 through the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act extends into the airspace above and into the earth beneath the seabed.

While coral reefs initially made the Great Barrier Reef famous, they only comprise about seven per cent of the Marine Park and the World Heritage Area. 

The rest of the Marine Park is an extraordinary variety of marine habitats, ranging from shallow inshore areas – such as seagrass, mangroves, sand, algal and sponge gardens, and inter-reefal communities – to deep oceanic areas more than 250km offshore.

Rather than having one level of protection throughout the Marine Park, the area is instead divided into different zones. Each zone has different rules outlining permitted activities and those that are prohibited.

Just how big is the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park?

Covering 344,400km2 Great Barrier Reef Marine Park is:

bigger than Victoria and Tasmania combined bigger than the United Kingdom, Switzerland and Holland combined roughly the same area as Japan, Germany, Malaysia or Italy approximately half the size of Texas slightly smaller than the entire Baltic Sea.

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The Great Barrier Reef is the largest coral reef system in the world. It is found in the Coral Sea, off the coast of Queensland, Australia.

The Great Barrier Reef is the world’s largest living structure.

The Great Barrier Reef is around 2600 kilometres (1616 miles) in length.

Astronauts can see the Great Barrier Reef from space.

Marine animals called coral play an important role in the formation of the Great Barrier Reef.

The Great Barrier Reef is home to a wide range of life, including fish, sea turtles, giant clam, seahorse, sea snakes, nudibranch, sea turtles, stingray, sharks and many more.

Over 1500 different species of fish live in the Great Barrier Reef, including clownfish, star of the animated film Finding Nemo.

Whales, dolphins and dugong can also be seen in the Great Barrier Reef.

Climate change is perhaps the biggest threat to the Great Barrier Reef.

Warmer ocean temperatures put stress on coral and lead to coral bleaching.

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Chapter Three – Environmental threats

Climate change, pollution, crown-of-thorns starfish and fishing are the primary threats to the health of this reef system. Other threats include shipping accidents, oil spills, and tropical cyclones. Skeletal Eroding Band, a disease of bony corals caused by the protozoan Halofolliculina corallasia, affects 31 coral species. According to a 2012 study by the National Academy of Science, since 1985, the Great Barrier Reef has lost more than half of its corals with two-thirds of the loss occurring from 1998 due to the factors listed before.

Climate change

The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority considers the greatest threat to the Great Barrier Reef to be climate change, causing ocean warming which increases coral bleaching. Mass coral bleaching events due to elevated ocean temperatures occurred in the summers of 1998, 2002 and 2006, and coral bleaching is expected to become an annual occurrence. As global warming continues due to anthropogenic causes, corals will not be able to keep up with increasing ocean temperatures. Coral bleaching events lead to increased disease susceptibility, which causes detrimental ecological effects for reef communities. Climate change has implications for other forms of reef life—some fish's preferred temperature range leads them to seek new habitat, thus increasing chick mortality in predatory seabirds. Climate change will also affect the population and sea turtle's available habitat.

Bleaching events in benthic coral communities (deeper than 20 metres or 66 feet) in the Great Barrier reef are not as well documented as those at shallower depths, but recent research has shown that benthic communities are just as negatively impacted in the face of rising ocean temperatures. Five Great Barrier Reef species of large benthic corals were found bleached under elevated temperatures, affirming that benthic corals are vulnerable to thermal stress.

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Pollution

Another key threat faced by the Great Barrier Reef is pollution and declining water quality. The rivers of north eastern Australia pollute the Reef during tropical flood

events. Over 90% of this pollution comes from farm runoff. 80% of the land adjacent to the Great Barrier Reef is used for farming including intensive cropping of sugar cane, and

major beef cattle grazing. Farming practices damage the reef due to overgrazing, increased run-off of agricultural sediments, nutrients and chemicals including fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides representing a major health risk for the coral and biodiversity of

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the reefs.

Loss of coastal wetland

The runoff problem is exacerbated by the loss of coastal wetlands which act as a natural filter for toxins and help deposit sediment. It is thought that the poor water quality is due to increased light and oxygen competition from algae.

Pesticides

Pesticides used in farming are made up of heavy metals such as lead, mercury, arsenic and other toxins are released into the wider environment due to erosion of farm soil which have detrimental effect on the coral.

Chapter Four- Diving the Great Barrier Reef

The Great Barrier Reef is world renowned for it's amazing scuba diving locations. Bommies, coral reefs and an abundance of marine life stretch for the entire 2,300km length of the reef.If you are a certified diver or a snorkeller, the Great Barrier Reef has some of the best ocean life in the world. If you have never dived before, the Great Barrier Reef offers some great places to learn to dive

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There are a wide range of dive sites along the Great Barrier Reef, there are calm, protected, shallow spots around the islands, perfect for first-timers, there are gentle reef sites, rich in fish life and corals and the deeper sites on the outer reefs for those with some experience. All sites are best reached by boat ranging from luxury cruisers to spectacular sail boats. For those visitors who have never put their head under the water, but want to see if they can enjoy snorkelling or diving, there are excellent one-day, first-time dive trips.

Dive the Great Barrier Reef

Australia's Great Barrier Reef offers a range of diving experiences for both the beginner and the experienced diving expert. Diving expeditions depart daily from all the major cities and towns along the coast and from most island resorts. No matter where you stay on the reef, you are always within a 20 - 60 minute boat ride of an excellent diving spot.

The late, great Jacques Cousteau famously named the Heron Bommie off Heron Island as one of his top ten favourite diving sites in the world.

Douglas Adams, the author of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy wrote an amusing anecdote about his experience diving at Hayman Island on the reef.

The Great Barrier Reef offers all manner of accommodation for singles, couples and families. The keen diver will be able to fine a suitable location to stay regardless of budget.

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The Great Barrier Reef, Australia is one of the natural wonders of the world and a superb place to indulge in the best scuba diving in the world

Chapter Five- History and evolution of the reef

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Evolution.

The Great Barrier Reef is an extremely ancient, enormous host of living things, composed of living coral growing on dead coral dating back perhaps as much as twenty million years. Many generations of dead coral have built themselves into great walls of stone covered in a diverse range of living organisms such as coral, algae, anemones, sponges, fish, worms, starfish, turtles, molluscs, snakes, crustaceans, and an extraordinary array of thousands of species of plants and animals.

Although there is no direct physical evidence, first human contact with the reef must've occurred for some time. We know that Aboriginal people occupied great parts of the Australian continent for around 40,000 years. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have fished and hunted its waters and navigated between the islands of the reef region.

For large parts of that time, during periods of glacial activity, the area of the Great Barrier Reef was dry with large flat coastal plains. This area is at a depth of less than one hundred metres below sea level today.

Early History.

More information is available about the activities of early Europeans who came into contact with the eastern coast of Australia. Almost from the first, there are written

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descriptions of the Great Barrier Reef by those who saw it. North Queensland was probably the first part of the continent seen by Europeans, but one of the last to be settled.It is now widely believed that the east coast of Australia was first sighted around 1522 by a Portuguese expedition, probably led by Cristovao de Mendonca. Willem Jansz in the Duyfken in about March 1606 charted the west coast of Cape York Peninsula, starting forty years of maritime exploration in Australian waters by the Dutch. Later Luis de Torres sighted the islands of Torres Strait while sailing from east to west along the southern coast of Papua.

The earliest documentary evidence of Europeans sighting the Great Barrier Reef was French. Commanding the ships La Boudeuse and L'Etoile On 6 June 1768, Louis de Bougainville approached Australia from the east, encountering Bougainville Reef near Cooktown. Confronted by rough surf in the open ocean, and short of food, Bougainville turned north toward Asia along the north coast of New Guinea, missing Australia.

William Bligh was the next navigator to chart the Reef in the Providence. In the course of this voyage from Tahiti to the West Indies he spent two weeks of September 1792 charting passages through Torres Strait. After the establishment of the penal colony of Sydney in 1788, finding a reliable route west through the straits to the Arafura Sea and establishing communication with Asia depended on the inner passage west of the Reef.In 1793 further surveys of the Torres Strait section of the Reef were undertaken by captains Bampton and Alt in the ships Hormuzeer and Chesterfield. The next few decades ushered in a period of surveying in northern Australian waters, usually by small naval vessels. The aim of these surveys was to improve navigational charts for Admiralty use, investigate natural resources for future economic exploitation, and to answer questions of scientific curiosity.

Between 1801 and 1803, Matthew Flinders undertook the monumental task of surveying the entire Australian coastline and at one point actually walked on what he named the 'Extensive Barrier Reefs'. It was Flinders who charted a safe passage through

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by sending small boats ahead to sound the depths. This passage is still known as Flinder's Passage.

Hydrographer Philip Parker King, commanding the Mermaid in 1819 and the Bathurst in 1820, carried on the methodical task of accurately charting much of the northern Reef in detail for the first time.

Today studies are carried out at a much closer level, examining the make up of the reef, what species there are, how they live and interact, whether they are resilient or vulnerable to change. However, there is still evidence of an earlier period of discovery evident on the Great Barrier Reef, with around 30 shipwreck sites of historic importance known to exist.

Bibliography:

http://www.greatbarrierreef.org/tourism_diving.php

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http://www.greatbarrierreef.org/great-barrier-reef-facts.phphttp://whc.unesco.org/en/list/154http://www.sciencekids.co.nz/sciencefacts/earth/greatbarrierreef.htmlhttp://www.gbrmpa.gov.au/about-the-reef/facts-about-the-great-barrier-reefhttp://www.gbrmpa.gov.au/outlook-for-the-reef/great-barrier-reef-coastal-ecosystemshttp://www.gbrmpa.gov.au/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Barrier_Reefhttp://www.australia.com/explore/icons/great-barrier-reef.aspxwww.cairns- greatbarrierreef .org.au

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