Coral reef to form fringing reefs, and can eventually grow become a barrier reef. Where the bottom is rising, fringing reefs can grow around the coast, but coral raised above sea level dies. If the land subsides slowly, the fringing reefs keep pace by growing upwards on a base of older, dead coral, forming a barrier reef enclosing a lagoon between the reef and the land. A barrier reef can encircle an island, and once the island sinks below sea level a roughly circular atoll of growing coral continues to keep up with the sea level, forming a central lagoon. Barrier reefs
Coral Sea Reserves Ramsar Site commercial tour groups is regulated and limited, though there is some visitation by private yachts. Coral Sea Reserves Ramsar Site The Coral Sea Reserves Ramsar Site comprises the 17,292 km of oceanic island and reef habitats within the former Coringa-Herald National Nature Reserve and the former Lihou Reef National Nature Reserve in the Australian Coral Sea Islands Territory. The existence of the islands and cays within the two reserves has been known to navigators since the early nineteenth century. Lihou Reef was named after Captain John Lihou of HMS "Zenobia", who discovered the reef and its cays in 1823. The