THE world鈥檚 largest coral reef system, Australia鈥檚 Great Barrier Reef, is
only 600,000 years old, researchers have confirmed.
The biology of the reef has long fascinated scientists, but its age has
remained a mystery. 鈥淲e鈥檝e tried every method of dating known to man, and it鈥檚
proved very difficult to get reliable ages,鈥� says Colin Braithwaite of the
University of Glasgow.
Now an international team of researchers has collected data from boreholes
that reveals when the reef began growing on a sandy limestone base. The modern
reef started growing just as a 100,000-year climate cycle kicked in that flips
glacial periods into interglacials and back again. The cycle causes sea levels
to rise and fall some 100 metres (Geology, vol 29, p 483).
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