Osprey Reef Osprey Reef Osprey Reef is a submerged atoll in the Coral Sea, northeast of Queensland, Australia. It is part of the Northwestern Group of the Coral Sea Islands. Osprey Reef is roughly oval in shape, measuring , and covers around . It has a perimeter of . The central lagoon is only deep. The reef sits atop a seamount in deep water. It is an isolated location some from other reefs. The almost vertical reef walls, which rise from a depth of about , are home to a dwarf form of "Nautilus pompilius" that is isolated from other nautilus populations
Deep-water coral extended to . Scientists recently deployed concrete reef balls in an attempt to provide habitat for fish and coral. Scientists estimate that trawling has damaged or destroyed 30 to 50 percent of the Norwegian shelf coral area. The International Council for the Exploration of the Sea, the European Commission’s main scientific advisor on fisheries and environmental issues in the northeast Atlantic, recommend mapping and closing Europe’s deep corals to fishing trawlers. In 1999, the Norwegian Ministry of Fisheries closed an area of containing the large Sula Reef to bottom trawling. In 2000, an additional area closed, covering about . An