In my personal opinion , the prettiest parts of the oceans are the coral reefs! So I'm going to dedicate this page to informing you guys all about them!

Where?

Coral reefs are estimated to cover 284,300 square kilometers of the ocean. The Indo-Pacific region (including the Red Sea, Indian Ocean, Southeast Asia and the Pacific) accounting for 91.9% of the total. Southeast Asia accounts for 32.3% of that figure, while the Pacific including Australia accounts for 40.8%. Atlantic and Caribbean coral reefs only account for 7.6% of the world total.

How?

You might wonder how these reefs come about. Well ya see, Coral just happens to grow in certain places and from there more and more grow, forming a reef. From that sponges and sea urchins and many exotic fish come into play. You might also wonder how they get so pretty? Well, you should be asking, "what makes them so pretty?

What?

I'll tell you what makes them so pretty! Algae and coral have this relationship going on called symbiosis. Where they work together to help each other. Algae needs a home and coral needs food. So, the coral lets the algae move in and the algae puts food on the table for the coral every night. From this, the coral get their beautiful colors because algae can take pigments from light to make it all different colors. Since it's inside the coral, and the coral is clear, it makes the coral look like it's beautifully colored making the reef spectacular.

The Great Barrier Reef.

I'm sure you've heard of this before. It's the largest coral reef in the world. Probably the prettiest, too. Composed of over 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands stretching for over 1,600 miles over an area of approximately 133,000 square miles. The reef is located in the Coral Sea, off the coast of Queensland in northeast Australia

As you can see in the picture to left, it's quite huge! This picture was actually taken from outer space! Yes, you can see it all the way up there. Crazy! It's been named one of the 7 natural wonders of the world. The Queensland National Trust has named it a state icon of Queensland. So as you can see, it's quite a big deal. A large part of the reef is protected by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, which helps to limit the impact of human use, such as over fishing and tourism. Other environmental pressures to the reef and its ecosystem include water quality from runoff, climate change accompanied by mass coral bleaching, and cyclic outbreaks of the crown-of-thorns starfish. You may be wondering what coral bleaching even is. Coral Bleaching is

when all the Coral lose their color. It's from the loss of pigmentation within the algae. The algaes die off and lose their color and that leaves the coral with no color. Making them look white, hence the name coral bleaching. It takes time to heal, but eventually it will be all good and colorful once again.