The greatest reefs in Earth's history
Reef systems cover ten times the area of all modern reefs combined.
- When
- Known to
- ± 10 million years
- Era
- Devonian, Paleozoic
Devonian reefs, built by stromatoporoids, tabulate and rugose corals, reach an extent never matched before or since — major complexes in Australia, western North America, Russia and Europe individually dwarf the Great Barrier Reef. The Canning Basin reef in Western Australia runs for hundreds of kilometres and is exposed today as a range of hills. The Late Devonian extinctions destroy them, and reefs of comparable scale do not return for over a hundred million years.