时间:2019-01-22 作者:英语课 分类:自然百科2011年


英语课

 As a polyp grows, it puts up a wall of limestone 1 around itself. And then it multiplies. Each polyp can produce thousands of offspring, which all work together to build a living fortress-- a coral reef.


 
After just a few years, a single piece of coral can harbor as many as 25,000 polyps, all children of the original founder 2. These creatures live fast, but not all die young. 
 
Wachenfeld: “Many corals that help to build the reef only live for a few years, but some, as individual animals, will live for 1000 years or more. These animals are as ancient as any plant or animal on our planet. They are quite incredible.”
 
Here the polyps have gone into overdrive. They’ve built a reef over 1,200 miles long, enough to stretch from Seattle to Los Angeles. Because in this one spot, a unique combination of circumstances have come together to create a coral heaven. 
 
The whole reef sits on the barely submerged edge of the Australian coast, known as the continental 3 shelf. Other continents have shelves, but none like this. It’s huge, in some places, up to 100 miles wide. On this shelf, it’s summer all year round. Most of all, it’s shallow, so this whole stretch of seabed is blasted in sunlight. 
 
To polyps, light matters as much as warmth, because living within its tissues is a plant.

n.石灰石
  • Limestone is often used in building construction.石灰岩常用于建筑。
  • Cement is made from limestone.水泥是由石灰石制成的。
n.创始者,缔造者
  • He was extolled as the founder of their Florentine school.他被称颂为佛罗伦萨画派的鼻祖。
  • According to the old tradition,Romulus was the founder of Rome.按照古老的传说,罗穆卢斯是古罗马的建国者。
adj.大陆的,大陆性的,欧洲大陆的
  • A continental climate is different from an insular one.大陆性气候不同于岛屿气候。
  • The most ancient parts of the continental crust are 4000 million years old.大陆地壳最古老的部分有40亿年历史。
学英语单词
-thiazide
aftertastes
alchornea rufescens franch.
alkaline accumulators
Atheropront
auto bicycle
baldin
baudys
Black Sea Fleet
blundens
Bonners Ferry
cascade process
chalcosphere
chickasaw plums
citronize
coded decimal machine
component grammar
concentric quadrics
continuum medium
Couddes
cradle-song
creative potential
Crossley
deoghyeon (tokhyol)
determeter
diplolar
double-purpose
draught resistance
Echinochimaeroidei
emotional illusion
episema
filled-in
final-draft
fitting fixture
force potential function
free-water knockout
fungia fragilis
gamini
gleer
gross operating spread
Haveluliku
helix-turn-helix
hen-wife
homocouplings
image background
jacksaw
Kin-U
krishman
lake plain
lily-pot
liquid styrene-butadiene rubber
membrane digestion
miniatory
miseducation
moulding shrinkage
Nambicuara
nephropsis stewanti
net safe bearing capacity
nizzles
normalization of work
NWSC
ocean floor spreading hypothesis
Omoto-gawa
opisthotonoss
oxychlordane
photosensibility
physical health
plesiomorphy
poly(p-hydroxybenzoic acid)
posthouses
pulmonary tubercle
recording viscometer
Ree Heights
relative erythrocytosis
relativity correction
resistance-reactance-ratio
Retzius' cavity
safety-chains
scalable parallel processor
sealed cover
shieldferns
simplified saline test
siphac
sonar standards
Soyons
specific variety
split torque transmission
subcroppings
thermokarst topography
thiobarbiturate
threshold valve
translation of functions
turdy
tylorrhynchus
tyroleucine
uredo vitis
urine lutinizing hormone determination
urinometry
VESC
wash stuff
Wiluna
workholic