The Mysterious Origins of The Great Barrier Reef May Finally Be Explained

Australia's Great Barrier Reef might never have come to be were it not for the formation of a vast island based mostly on sand.

K'gari, also known as Fraser Island, has the honor of being the world's largest sand island, covering around 640 square miles just off the southeastern coast of Queensland.

Quartz-rich sands have a way of smothering carbonate-rich sediments, which are necessary for coral development. K'gari might be the lost puzzle piece researchers have been searching for. Analysis and dating of sand from the many dunes on the 123 kilometer long island suggest the land mass formed between 1.2 and 0.7 million years ago, just a few hundred thousand years before the Great Barrier Reef came to be.

Along the east coast of Australia this probably meant a long northward treadmill of soil and sand tracing the continental shelf.

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