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This is the second biggest coral reef system on Earth, the largest being the Great Barrier Reef. It is approximately one third the size of the 900km long Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System. Benares Shoals: Peros Banhos atoll, northern Chagos Archipelago: Blake Plateau reef
An alternative model for the origin of atolls is called the antecedent karst model. In the antecedent karst model, the first step in the formation of an atoll is the development of a flat top, mound-like coral reef during the subsidence of an oceanic island of either volcanic or nonvolcanic origin below sea level.
For the atoll to persist, the coral reef must be maintained at the sea surface, with coral growth matching any relative change in sea level (subsidence of the island or rising oceans). [25] On the atolls, an annular reef rim surrounds the lagoon, and may include natural reef channels.
Gahaafaru Atoll also known as Gaafaru Atoll or Gaafarufalhu is a small atoll at the eastern end of a large elliptical reef that has proved disastrous to many vessels with the wrecks of Aracan (1873), SS Seagull (1879), Clan Alpine (1879), Erlangen (1894), Crusader (1905) and Lady Cristine (1974). 15 kilometres (9.3 miles) long and 8.5 ...
Kenn Reefs, submerged atoll of about 15 by 8 km, area 40 km 2, islet Observatory Cay in the Southeast, 2 m high; Saumarez Reefs, southernmost reefs to be located on the Coral Sea Shelf; three main reefs and numerous smaller reefs that form a large crescent-shaped formation open to the northwest, about 27 by 14 km, area less than 300 km 2. There ...
Kingman Reef (/ ˈ k ɪ ŋ m ən /) is a largely submerged, uninhabited, triangle-shaped reef, geologically an atoll, 9.0 nmi (20 km) east-west and 4.5 nmi (8 km) north-south, [2] in the North Pacific Ocean, roughly halfway between the Hawaiian Islands and American Samoa.
Platform reefs are typically situated within atolls, where they adopt the name "patch reefs" and often span a diameter of just a few dozen meters. In instances where platform reefs develop along elongated structures, such as old and weathered barrier reefs, they tend to arrange themselves in a linear formation.
Lighthouse Reef is an atoll in the Caribbean Sea, the easternmost part of the Belize Barrier Reef and one of its three atolls, the other two being Turneffe Atoll and Glover's Reef. Lighthouse Reef is located about 80 kilometres (50 mi) southeast of Belize City.