A map of the Coral Sea Islands.

The Coral Sea is a marginal sea off the north-east coast of Australia. A marginal sea is a part of an ocean partially enclosed by land such as Islands Archipelagos or Peninsulas Unlike mediterranean For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Australia topics. It is bounded in the west by the east coast of Queensland, thereby including the Great Barrier Reef, in the east by the New Hebrides and by New Caledonia, and in the north approximately by the southern extremity of the Solomon Islands. Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern corner of the mainland continent The Great Barrier Reef is the largest Coral reef system in the world composed of over 2900 individual reefs and 900 islands stretching for 2600 kilometres (1600 mi Hebrides (disambiguation New Hebrides was the colonial name for an Island group in the South Pacific that now forms the nation of Vanuatu. For the former North American fur-trading district see New Caledonia (Canada, and for the Scottish colony in Panama see Darien scheme. The Solomon Islands is a country in Melanesia, east of Papua New Guinea, consisting of nearly one thousand islands ^[1] South of it is the Tasman Sea. The Tasman Sea is the large body of water between Australia and New Zealand, some 2000 Kilometres (1250 Miles across

While the Great Barrier Reef with its islands and cays belong to Queensland, most reefs and islets east of it are part of the Coral Sea Islands Territory. The Great Barrier Reef is the largest Coral reef system in the world composed of over 2900 individual reefs and 900 islands stretching for 2600 kilometres (1600 mi The Coral Sea Islands Territory includes a group of small and mostly uninhabited tropical islands and reefs in the Coral Sea, northeast of Queensland, Australia In addition, some islands west of and belonging to New Caledonia are also part of the Coral Sea Islands in a geographical sense, such as the Chesterfield Islands and Bellona Reefs. For the former North American fur-trading district see New Caledonia (Canada, and for the Scottish colony in Panama see Darien scheme. Chesterfield Islands ( îles Chesterfield in French) is an Archipelago of New Caledonia located in the Coral Sea, 550 km North

The Coral Sea Basin was formed between 58 million - 48 million years ago because the Queensland continental shelf was uplifted, forming the Great Dividing Range, and continental blocks subsided at the same time. A structural basin is a large-scale structural formation of rock strata formed by tectonic warping of previously flat lying strata. The Great Dividing Range, also known as the Eastern Highlands, is Australia 's most substantial Mountain range. ^[2]

The Coral Sea is ecologically an important source of coral for the Great Barrier Reef, both during its formation and after sea level lowering. The Great Barrier Reef is the largest Coral reef system in the world composed of over 2900 individual reefs and 900 islands stretching for 2600 kilometres (1600 mi ^[3]

History

Main article: Battle of the Coral Sea

The sea was the location for a major confrontation during World War II. The Battle of the Coral Sea, fought from May 4 – May 8, 1942, with most of the action occurring on May 7 and May 8, was World War II, or the Second World War, (often abbreviated WWII) was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including

See also

A satellite image of the Louisiade Archipelago and the northern Coral Sea. The Louisiade Archipelago is a string of ten larger volcanic islands frequently fringed by coral reefs and 90 smaller coral islands located 200 km southeast of New Guinea, stretching

• USS Coral Sea (aircraft carrier)
• Coral Sea Islands

References

• Community monitoring of reef sharks in the Coral Sea and Great Barrier Reef, Australia (2008) Australian Underwater Federation