Wonders of nature: Prehistoric coral reef discovered in a desert  

What image do you visualise when you hear the term coral reef? A colourful chain of rocks, sand and corals (made up of limestone skeletons and marine polyps) lying at or near the surface of water, right? The quintessential example is the Great Barrier Reef off the east coast of Australia. But, can you think of a coral reef in a desert? Certainly not! Well, it turns out that one of the ancient coral reef systems exists in the Great Australian Desert. This is exactly what scientists have recently discovered. Now, that is intriguing, isn’t it? Let’s find out more about this new-found coral reef. 

A 4000 feet coral reef in the middle of Australian Desert 
The remnants of this prehistoric coral reef have been unearthed in the middle of Nullarbor Plain in the arid regions of southern Australia, which is now a 76,000 square mile desert comprising of limestone bedrock. Here is an interesting piece of info for you: Back in the Cenozoic era, that is approximately 14 million years ago, this is exactly where a tropical ocean existed. This coral reef is millions of years old and is as deep as 4000 feet with a shape of a bull’s eye.  

This latest discovery has been credited to the geologists from the School of Earth and Planetary Sciences of Curtin University in Perth who used high-resolution satellite imagery to come upon this brand-new finding. The study has been published in a journal Earth Surface Processes and Landforms. Interestingly, Nullabor Plain, unlike most arid regions worldwide have largely escaped the weathering and erosion processes over the years, making it an ideal canvas to study ancient geographical formations.  

Life in Nullabor Plain before it became a desert 
For those unaware, 18 per cent of modern-day Australia is covered in desert. However, this wasn’t always the case. Millions of years ago, the region was covered in rainforests and tropical oceans, including the one that submerged the Nullabor Plain. Not only that, it had a prominent coral reef structure with a central dome shape and a circular elevated rim, with a diameter ranging between 3950 to 4250 feet. What’s more interesting is that this coral reef differs from other local landforms and rather resembles the microbial and deformation textures of the Great Barrier Reef, as evident from the remains that was once a rind-shaped coral hill. The remnants also suggest prior existence of long-lost rivers and dune systems that left its mark deeply into the existing limestone.  

Here's some more surprising news for you. This brand-new discovery has also revealed signs of mummified remains of Tasmanian tigers alongside complete skeletons of long-extinct marvels such as Thylacoleo and the marsupial lion. Scientists now also believe that the Nullabor plain was once impacted by back-to-back meteorites, leading to its desert formation.