A coral reef is a rocky ridge under the surface of the ocean that is created not through the oceanic uplift or mountain building process - via plate tectonics - but by living coral. The rocky substrate that is a coral reef is made using thin layers of calcium carbonate produced by various corals.
The creation process is not an overnight event. It can take 30 Million years to create a sizable coral reef. That period is one of the reasons why so many people are concerned about the health of coral systems around the world.
What type of ocean life benefits from Coral reefs?
Earlier we mentioned that a coral reef is a coral community. These ecosystems are large and balanced. Around 25 percent of the organisms in the ocean are impacted one way or another by coral reefs. It may be that an organism lives there, feeds there,