What major geologic events influenced the Great Barrier Reefs in Australia?

Question

Please give a clear explanation.

Answer 1

1. Passive plate margin on Australia's eastern coast.
2. Sea level fluctuations.
3. Climate changes (water temp).

Answer 2

I don't think that a geologic process per se formed the Great Barrier Reefs in Australia. This is more a biology question. And maybe taxonomy. The oceanic environement, undersea thermal vents, organisms evolving in that area and the climate all had their hand in it's construction. A coral reef is just a structure built by the tiny shells of coral organisms that look like a colony of organism living in a hard, shell-like honeycomb structured colony. What we think of as coral is actually little organisms living on the remains of other little organisms that have died. A coral is actually made up of thousands of organisms. Plate tectonics has left the Australian plate where it is today - that is a geologic factor. But it was the climate and undersea environment that caused the reef to form.

Answer 3

fairly constant sea levels ... sea level falls and the reef is exposed and dies ... sea level rises too fast and the reef
starves from lack of light ....