Coral and Island Formation

Coral – Animal, Mineral or Vegetable? We use the word Coral to refer to both the Skeleton of the coral animal, and to the Coral Animal itself. This causes a bit of confusion!!! The skeleton is a form of limestone The animal is an animal The animal has Algae – (vegetable) growing inside it.

Zooxanthele – The algae that live inside the coral Animal. They take sunlight and turn it into food for the coral. The algae uses the wastes of the coral for its life. Symbiosis

The Largest Animal Some people say that the Great Barrier Reef is the worlds largest animal!!!

A guy named Charley and a ship named Beagle Many years ago, in a land far, far away – called England, a young man who was fascinated with beetles (as well as other things) was offered a sailing ship around the world. He accepted, was seasick a lot, and the rest is history. On his trip he saw a lot of islands in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. When he got home he wrote a book about them called Coral Reefs (he wrote some other books that he became more famous for also)

What he saw He saw some islands that look like: Fagasa

And some were like this: Barrier Reef

Barrier Reefs and an atoll

And finally, some islands like this: Atoll

Some Atolls - Laysan

Some Atolls - Kure

Some Atolls - Midway

Some Atolls – Pearl and Hermes

How it Goes

Mauna Loa has had landslides off Kealakekua, Kilauea has had landslides off the Hilina Pali.

Oahu is a great example of this – Rabbit Island, and Diamond Head are examples of the cones – the Tantalus/Manoa lava flow as well as Black Point shows lavas, and the Ewa Plain and Kaneohe Bay shows reef formations

The Northwest Hawaiian Islands, from French Frigate Shoals on are in this stage