Coral reefs are created by hard, or stony, coral. Soft corals don’t form reefs, but are often found on reefs, adding essential structural complexity to the entire reef ecosystem.
This animation shows the dynamic process of how a coral atoll forms. View an animation of a coral atoll forming.
Coral reefs begin to form when free-swimming coral larvae attach to submerged rocks or other hard surfaces along the edges of islands or continents. As the corals grow and expand, reefs take on one of three major characteristic structures—fringing, barrier, or atoll. Fringing reefs, which are the most common, project seaward directly from the shore, forming borders along the shoreline and surrounding islands. Barrier reefs also border shorelines, but at a greater distance. They are separated from their adjacent land mass by a lagoon of open, often deep water. If a fringing reef forms around a volcanic island that sinks completely below sea level while the coral continues to grow upward, an atoll forms. Atolls are usually circular or oval, with a central lagoon. Parts of the reef platform may emerge as one or more islands, and gaps in the reef provide access to the central lagoon.
In addition to being some of the most beautiful and biologically diverse habitats in the ocean, barrier reefs and atolls also are some of the oldest. With growth rates of 0.3 to 2 centimeters per year for massive corals, and up to 10 centimeters per year for branching corals, it can take up to 10,000 years for a coral reef to form. Depending on their size, barrier reefs and atolls can take from 100,000 to 30 million years to fully form.
Over time, many coral reefs develop similar biogeographic profiles. View a detailed diagram and a description of the coral reef profiles.
All three reef types — fringing, barrier, and atoll — share similarities in their biogeographic profiles. The structure and makeup of the ocean floor in each reef zone, as well as depth, wave and current strength, light, temperature, and suspended sediments all act to create characteristic horizontal and vertical zones of corals, algae, and other species. These zones vary according to the location and type of reef. The major divisions common to most reefs, as they move seaward from the shore, are the reef flat, reef crest or algal ridge, buttress zone, and seaward slope.
