The remains of a coral reef millions of years old have been discovered in the middle of an Australian desert. The reef was discovered in the Nullarbor Plain in southern Australia, which has now been transformed into a 76,000-square-mile desert with limestone bedrock.
However, the reef was thought to be submerged under a tropical ocean 14 million years ago during the Cenozoic era.
According to the sources, scientists from Curtin University's School of Earth and Planetary Sciences in Perth identified these coral reefs as a bull's-eye form in fresh and high-resolution satellite photos. The discovery has called into question their previous beliefs that the Nullarbor Plain lacked any features.
According to co-author and geologist Milo Barham, "Unlike many parts of the world, large areas of the Nullarbor Plain have remained largely unchanged by weathering and erosion processes over millions of years, making it a unique geological canvas recording ancient history in remarkable ways."
"Through high-resolution satellite imagery and fieldwork, we identified a clear remnant of an original sea-bed structure preserved for millions of years, which is the first of its kind discovered on the Nullarbor Plain," Braham added.
According to sources, 18% of Australia is classified as desert, making the country largely arid in modern times. However, for hundreds of millions of years, Australia was surrounded by oceans and rain forests, including the ocean that once submerged the Nullarbor Plain.
The coral reef structure, according to a study published in the journal Earth Surface Processes and Landforms, consists of a circular raised rim and a central dome shape. The structure's diameter ranges from 3,950 to 4,250 feet. According to the study, the structure also differs from other plain landforms and cannot be described by any of the local geological processes.
