Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is the world’s largest living structure, yet at alarmingly rapid rates, it is becoming the planet’s largest dying structure due to rising ocean temperatures.
The Great Barrier Reef stretches over 134,000 square miles off of the coast of Queensland, Australia, and is home to a vast array of fish species, turtles, sharks, dolphins, starfish, mollusks, and more sea life. The reef is made up of billions of tiny organisms called coral polyps. It is so vast that it can be seen from space.
When ocean temperatures rise, the reefs start to deteriorate in what is called the “bleaching” process, and if the ocean temperature is too high for too long, then the reefs die.
In this segment from 60 Minutes Australia, “Great Barrier Grief,” Tom Steinfort interviews Dr. Charlie Veron on the devastation of the reef.
This aired in 2017, at a time when the reef experienced two years (2016-2017) of unprecedented coral bleaching.
Unfortunately, the Great Barrier Reef is currently suffering a sixth mass-bleaching event.
