Top Results for Crater Reef

Long, slender spines give Diadema antillarum its recognizable outline in shallow Caribbean and western Atlantic waters. This sea urchin is often dark in color and uses its fragile, sharp spines for defense. Contact can cause painful punctures, but describing the spines simply as venom-tipped gives a...

Steep cliffs surround Praia do Sancho on Fernando de Noronha, the Brazilian archipelago known for protected coastal and marine environments. The beach occupies a sheltered-looking cove, with clear water and rocky areas that attract snorkelers interested in observing marine life. Its setting gives it...

The Palau Barrier Reef is a significant tropical coral reef system located in Micronesia’s western Pacific Ocean. It forms a protective barrier around a rich lagoon and is recognized globally for its exceptional biodiversity. Designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the reef supports numerous mar...

On Jupiter's moon Callisto, Valhalla forms a vast impact structure distinguished by rings around a brighter central region. The concentric features extend across thousands of kilometers, making the full ring system much broader than the central impact area alone. Its appearance records how Callisto'...

An ancient river delta gives Jezero Crater on Mars much of its scientific importance. Water once carried sediment into a lake within this impact crater, leaving deposits that record conditions after the crater formed. Associated with early Martian history and the Noachian period, Jezero allows resea...

Concentric mountain rings make Orientale one of the Moon's distinctive large impact basins. Located near the western limb, it is partly hidden from Earth and is more fully revealed by spacecraft observations. The overall basin spans roughly 930 kilometers, far more than the 120 kilometers stated in...

Spread across the Moon's farside, the South Pole-Aitken Basin is an enormous ancient impact basin roughly 2,500 kilometers across. It is among the largest known impact structures in the solar system, but describing it as the largest known crater anywhere is too definite. Its name links the lunar sou...

Tycho is a large impact crater located on the Moon’s nearside. It stands out due to its expansive ray system, a bright, radiating pattern formed by ejected material during the initial impact. This crater, named after astronomer Tycho Brahe, offers scientists valuable insights into lunar geology and...

Buried beneath Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula and extending offshore, Chicxulub is a large impact structure associated with the asteroid strike at the end of the Cretaceous. Its significance comes from the connection between that collision and the Cretaceous-Paleogene mass extinction, when roughly three...

Rheasilvia occupies a large part of the southern hemisphere of Vesta, an asteroid with a differentiated rocky interior. Approximately 500 kilometers across, the impact basin is remarkable for its size relative to Vesta itself. A prominent central mountain rises inside it, providing a visible record...

Inside Gale Crater on Mars, the layered mountain Aeolis Mons, also called Mount Sharp, rises from the crater floor. The surrounding impact structure preserves a long geological record rather than only the moment of its formation. Gale dates to the early history of Mars, around the transition between...

Mare Imbrium occupies a broad impact basin on the Moon's nearside and forms one of the large dark areas visible from Earth. A major collision created the basin approximately 3.85 billion years ago. Later volcanic activity filled much of its interior with basaltic lava, producing the mare, or lunar p...

The Vredefort Dome is a massive impact crater formed approximately 2.03 billion years ago during Earth’s Precambrian era. It represents one of the oldest and largest confirmed impact structures globally. Located in South Africa, its immense size—over 300 kilometers across—highlights the violent even...

Herschel is a large impact crater prominently located on Mimas, one of Saturn’s moons. The crater represents an ancient collision that profoundly shaped the moon's surface. It accounts for approximately one-third of Mimas’ diameter, creating its recognizable, star-like appearance. Scientists study H...

Barringer Meteor Crater is a well-preserved impact crater located in Winslow, Arizona. Formed by a meteorite approximately 50,000 years ago, it represents one of the best examples of a preserved impact site on Earth. The crater’s size and clarity make it valuable for geological study and provides an...

An Alpheus species that forms a well-documented symbiotic partnership with goby fish on coral reefs, sharing a burrow where the nearly blind shrimp relies on the goby for predator warnings.

Caloris Basin is a gigantic impact crater located on Mercury’s surface. It represents one of the most significant geological events in the planet's early history, formed approximately 3.8 billion years ago when a massive asteroid struck. The basin measures roughly 1,550 kilometers across and exhibit...

The red slate pencil urchin is the Indo-Pacific sea urchin Heterocentrotus mammillatus. It is distinguished by large, blunt, club-shaped spines that are often red and provide a markedly different appearance from the thin spines of many other urchins. It inhabits rocky reef environments, where its gr...

Along the southeastern coast of Mexico's Baja California Peninsula, Cabo Pulmo Reef forms a coral reef system within the Gulf of California. Cabo Pulmo National Park, established in 1995, protects the area, which also lies within the Islands and Protected Areas of the Gulf of California World Herita...

Hellas Planitia is a colossal impact basin located on Mars’s surface. It represents the largest known crater in our solar system, measuring approximately 2300 kilometers across and reaching a depth of 7000 meters. This Noachian-era feature provides scientists with valuable insights into early Martia...

Tsiolkovskiy is a large impact crater located on the far side of the Moon. Its defining feature is a 180-kilometer diameter basin filled with dark basaltic lava flows. This crater provides scientists with valuable data regarding early solar system impacts and lunar geology. It’s primarily studied by...

Bright blue spots on a tan, oval disc identify Taeniura lymma, commonly called the bluespotted stingray or bluespotted ribbontail ray. This cartilaginous fish inhabits shallow Indo-Pacific waters, especially coral reef areas and nearby sandy feeding grounds. Its pattern makes it visually distinctive...

Hanauma Bay Nature Preserve is a sheltered marine site on the southeastern coast of Oʻahu, formed in a volcanic crater open to the sea. Hawaiʻi designated its waters as the state’s first Marine Life Conservation District in October 1967, prohibiting the taking or removal of marine life and other mar...

The bluespotted ribbontail ray (*Taeniura lymma*) is a species of stingray in the family Dasyatidae, widely distributed across the Indo-Pacific region and the Red Sea. It is easily identified by its oval-shaped pectoral fin disc, which features bright, neon-blue spots over a yellowish to olive-brown...

The bluespotted ribbontail ray (*Taeniura lymma*) is a cartilaginous fish belonging to the stingray family Dasyatidae, native to the Indo-Pacific and the Red Sea. The ray is recognizable by the vibrant blue spots covering its yellow-olive body and its distinctive striped tail. It is a bottom-dwellin...

Asgard is a substantial impact basin located on Jupiter’s moon Callisto. It represents one of the largest ancient features on the satellite's surface. The basin’s prominent central palimpsest and extensive multi-ring structure—reaching approximately 1700 kilometers in diameter—offer valuable insight...

Clavius is a substantial impact crater located on the southern hemisphere of the Moon. It measures approximately 225 kilometers in diameter making it one of the largest features formed by impacts on the lunar surface. The crater’s interior displays a prominent series of smaller craters, a characteri...

The Manicouagan Crater is a massive impact structure in Quebec, Canada dating back to the Triassic period. Its exceptional size—approximately 130 kilometers across—makes it one of the largest known impact craters on Earth. Scientists study it to understand ancient impacts and their effects on planet...

Tunnels Beach, also known locally as Makua Beach, is a prominent shoreline area on the northern coast of Kauai, Hawaii. The site takes its name from the network of underwater lava tubes and caverns that attract snorkelers and scuba divers exploring the expansive fringing reef. The outer reef feature...