World News for Students of English

19-12-2014 07:00

It is rare to capture something so amazing on film!

Australia’s Great Barrier Reef has this year spawned in one of nature’s most impressive and rarely seen shows.

The coral reef put on an encore performance reproducing over night for the second time in two months. It released millions of eggs and sperm into the waters to fertilise.

Scientists and tourists have been marvelling in delight.

“There’s coral down there is smoking. It looks like, it’s kinda like… Lunar because it’s hard coral and the spawning is like smoke coming up the coral so it looks like it’s smoking. Absolutely amazing.”

James Cook University’s professor, Jamie Seymour, says conditions must be perfect for the coral to spawn, which is generally between November and December.

November’s full moon coupled with 28-degree Celsius sea temperatures are believed to have triggered the process.

Coral spawning tends to happen at night when plankton feeders are asleep. Only a small number of people get to witness the remarkable spectacle of nature reproducing. It’s a phenomenon which has only been known for 30 years.

Difficult words: spawn (release eggs), encore (second performance), fertilise (to make a baby by combining a sperm with an egg), marvel (be filled with wonder), delight (great pleasure), trigger (start), tend (when something probably will happen), plankton (small animals in the ocean), remarkable (special), spectacle (show), phenomenon (something which happens in nature).

Source: www.ondemandnews.com