Not too warm and not too cold—finding the Goldilocks Zone of the Great Barrier Reef

The Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Australia is the largest living coral reef system on Earth, about 300 times larger than the next largest reef, found off the coast of Belize. This unique UNESCO World Heritage Site is home to a wide variety of species and plays a vital role in global ecosystems. The environmental conditions under which this immense, continuous reef system formed have been largely unexplored.