An atoll is a ring shaped island formed around a lagoon, including a coral rim that may itself carry smaller coral islands or cays. Atolls form in the warm tropical and subtropical waters where corals can grow, and of the roughly 440 atolls known worldwide, most lie in the Pacific Ocean.
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Atoll (Wikipedia)
In Discipline: Oceanography, Lead paragraph
An atoll () is a ring-shaped island, including a coral rim that encircles a lagoon
Caused By: Volcanism, Lead sentence
According to Charles Darwin's subsidence model, the formation of an atoll is explained by the sinking of a volcanic island around which a coral fringing reef has formed.
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