In Chapter Seven, Kolbert travels to the research station on One Tree Island at the southern tip of the Great Barrier Reef, near Australia. The island is made up of sections of coral rubble, and the island owes its existence to a massive storm that occurred nearly four thousand years ago. Modern storms also leave their mark on the island, which continually seems to be in the process of changing shape.

Captain James Cook was the first European to encounter the Great Barrier Reef in 1770, in a rather unenviable fashion: his boat ran into a section of the reef, and Cook’s crew spent two months repairing the hull. Cook was mystified by the existence and height of the ridge, although he understood that it had been formed by animals in the ocean.

Lyell was highly interested in coral reefs and their formations, but it was Darwin who saw some while in Tahiti in 1835. There Darwin climbed up a tall point on the island and noticed that the nearby island of Moorea was “encircled by a reef the way a framed etching is surrounded by a mat” (127). Darwin theorized that if the island were to sink, the reef around it would become an atoll.