THE CORAL SEA MARINE REGION
“Due to their narrow thermal tolerance, corals are particularly sensitive to rising sea temperatures”
The Coral Sea Marine Region laps 2000km of the Queensland coast from Cape York to Bundaberg. It encompasses a vast area of remote ocean to the edge of Australia’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) that reaches to 1300km offshore from Mackay. The Coral Sea itself extends much further, to Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands in the north and Vanuatu and New Caledonia in the east.
Most of the Region overlies a continental slope about 1000m deep, descending to over 5000m in some places. Its underwater seascapes include deep sea plains and canyons, plateaus and volcanic seamounts, and the world’s largest coral reef system, the World Heritage-listed Great Barrier Reef. Hundreds of islands, coral cays and sandy islets rise up to 5m above the ocean’s surface and provide terrestrial platforms for unique plants, as well as seabirds and marine turtles that use them for resting, feeding and rookeries.
These diverse and complex habitats support an astonishing array of species: 500 kinds of marine algae and seaweed; 720 ascidians (sea squirts); 950 bryozoans (filter-feeding coral-like animals); 630 echinoderms (starfish, brittle stars, feather stars, sea cucumbers); 5000 molluscs; numerous anemones, sponges and worms; 100 jellyfish; 1300 crustaceans; 600 corals; more than 1600 fish; 133 sharks, stingrays and skates; 17 sea snakes; 30 whales, dolphins, porpoises and dugongs; 6 sea turtles; and more than 200 birds. Over 340 of these species are threatened globally and the Coral Sea is one of the last places on Earth where their populations exist in significant numbers.
