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Elizabeth

Elizabeth Reef

Elizabeth Reef is a coral reef in the Tasman Sea. The reef is separated by a deep oceanic pass, some 45 km wide, from nearby Middleton Reef, both of which are part of the underwater plateau known as the Lord Howe Rise. Elizabeth Reef is around 160 km from Lord Howe Island and...

 and Middleton Reef

Middleton Reef

Middleton Reef is a coral reef in the Tasman Sea. It is separated by a deep oceanic pass some 45 km wide from nearby Elizabeth Reef, forming part of the Lord Howe Rise underwater plateau. Middleton Reef is around 220 km from Lord Howe Island and 555 km from the coast of New South...

s form the Elizabeth and Middleton Reefs Marine National Park Reserve, located at the south-eastern end of the Coral Sea Islands

Coral Sea Islands

The Coral Sea Islands Territory includes a group of small and mostly uninhabited tropical islands and reefs in the Coral Sea, northeast of Queensland, Australia. The only inhabited island is Willis Island...

, an Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

n territory in the Coral Sea

Coral Sea

The Coral Sea is a marginal sea off the northeast coast of Australia. It is bounded in the west by the east coast of Queensland, thereby including the Great Barrier Reef, in the east by Vanuatu and by New Caledonia, and in the north approximately by the southern extremity of the Solomon Islands...

 and the north-western Tasman Sea

Tasman Sea

The Tasman Sea is the large body of water between Australia and New Zealand, approximately across. It extends 2,800 km from north to south. It is a south-western segment of the South Pacific Ocean. The sea was named after the Dutch explorer Abel Janszoon Tasman, the first recorded European...

. They are managed by the Government of Australia

Government of Australia

The Commonwealth of Australia is a federal constitutional monarchy under a parliamentary democracy. The Commonwealth of Australia was formed in 1901 as a result of an agreement among six self-governing British colonies, which became the six states...

 under the Natural Heritage Trust

Natural Heritage Trust

The Natural Heritage Trust was set up by the Australian Government in 1997 to help restore and conserve Australia's environment and natural resources....

. They also form a Ramsar site, having been listed as Ramsar Site 1223, on 21 October 2002, under the Ramsar Convention

Ramsar Convention

The Ramsar Convention is an international treaty for the conservation and sustainable utilization of wetlands, i.e., to stem the progressive encroachment on and loss of wetlands now and in the future, recognizing the fundamental ecological functions of wetlands and their economic, cultural,...

 as a wetland of international importance.

Description

Elizabeth Reef and Middleton Reef are a pair of isolated oceanic platform reefs separated from one another by 45 km of deep oceanic waters. They are located in the northern Tasman Sea, around 95 km north from Lord Howe Island

Lord Howe Island

Lord Howe Island is an irregularly crescent-shaped volcanic remnant in the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand, directly east of mainland Port Macquarie, and about from Norfolk Island. The island is about 11 km long and between 2.8 km and 0.6 km wide with an area of...

 and 555 km off the New South Wales

New South Wales

New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...

 coast, due east from Coffs Harbour. They are unique in that they represent the southernmost platform reefs in the world.

The two reefs of are of similar size and shape. They are largely awash, with only two small sand cays, one at each reef, being emergent at high tide. The reefs sit atop a feature known as the Lord Howe Rise — a ridge of volcanic origins that runs from New Zealand northwest across the Tasman Sea. Nearby Lord Howe Island is the only other emergent part of the ridge.

Despite their high latitude both reefs display a rich and diverse marine flora and flora, brought about by their location in an area where tropical and temperate ocean currents meet. Some 314 fishes of 174 genera and 75 families have been recorded from the site, many more than at other Tasman Sea islands.

As well as their considerable natural values, a large number of shipwrecks gives the area considerable marine archaeological significance. They are protected by the Elizabeth and Middleton Reefs Marine National Nature Reserve, covering 1,880 km². The reserve was proclaimed in 1987 to protect the two reefs' important and fragile marine ecosystems, as well as with the aim of conserving the rare and endangered Black Cod (Epinephelus daemelli).

Elizabeth Reef

Elizabeth Reef at 8.2 by 5.5 km is slightly smaller than Middleton. Its cay, Elizabeth Island, measures about 400 m in length and is up to 400 m in width. At low tides much of the reef flat is exposed by the receding waters.

Middleton Reef

Middleton Reef is a kidney-shaped structure, 8.9 km by 6.3 km. On the north side is an entrance in to the interior lagoon which is protected by the hard algal ridge and extensive reef flat that forms the outer margin to the reef. Its cay, known as The Sound, measures 100 m by 70 m. Its shallow lagoon has a sandy to silty bottom that contains numerous patch reefs and areas of coral pavement.