MUMBLINGS April 13, 2006

The single largest organism in the world is the Great Barrier Reef, just northeast of Queensland, Australia.

Easily, the biggest reef in the world… to give you an idea of its size it would be like from Baldwin County to Canada. Although you can’t see a lot of the reef when visiting, you can get an idea of its various forms, dangers, growth, etc.

There is an adjoining satellite image, courtesy of NASA, of the Great Barrier Reefs shown from miles in space and indicates its entire length, which is over 1200 miles and many miles wide.

Visiting there you can’t see much of the reef unless you get in a boat, or fly in a helicopter out several miles where there is a huge platform with many things to see.

You can walk down in the Pacific Ocean in a glass bottom and sides boat where you can view fish and all kinds of such species and interesting scenery of marine life among the corals. Or better still, which we did, we took a 30 or 40 minute trip under sea in a submarine that is run on a cable through the underwater reef…here you can see all kinds of growth, all kinds and all colors of coral, and hundreds of different sea life, including all kinds of small fish to huge ones.

One of the most interesting things is to observe the beautiful colors of the reef. Obviously, the reef has been there for thousands of years… some natives date it back 18,000 years. Be that as it may, it has obviously been there a long time, and especially since it only grows about 1/3 of an inch per year.

The biggest enemies of the reef are the Crown-of-Thorns Starfish, which grow to
a considerable size, and there are literally thousands of them. Also global warming affects the growth and health of the coral. For example, if the heat stays above a certain figure for 30 days it causes the bleaching of the corals, and if lasting long enough will cause the death of some. However, this has not been a serious problem since the effects of global warming is very small, and because the warming trends are minor, and changes from year to year, and century-to-century, etc.

As you can well imagine, the reef has caused the wreck of many ships. The most notorious one happened in 1791 killing 35 sailors on the ship HMS Pandora. Naturally, there have been hundreds of other shipwrecks but now the reef is so well known and mapped that this doesn’t happen as much as it once did. The Queensland Museum has been leading archaeological digs to the Pandora since 1983.

Queensland is in northeastern Australia and interestingly, does not have any rivers running into the ocean except when there are torrential rains, which is seldom.

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Continued

We boarded a ship that held about 100 people to go from land out to the huge platform where they had places to eat, restrooms, hundreds of archaeological items, etc. On our return trip to the mainland, we rode in a helicopter, which gave us a beautiful view of the whole area, and in many places you could see the reef.

Whether you want to count this as one of the Seven Wonders of the World is a matter of conjecture.

The fishing industry, involving the many varieties of fish in the reefs, amounts to several million dollars annually.

Scuba divers from all over the world come to study the reef.

This is the tenth Wonder of the World that has been reported in this column in the past several weeks. Now the point is, which seven to select. Actually we don’t have to select seven, why not select eleven or whatever. However, I will tell you next week in my opinion, what is the Greatest Wonder of the World… this, even more so than the Grand Canyon, New York City and the others I have mentioned. I am anxious to tell you about it.

See you again soon, I hope.