英语听力：自然百科 澳大利亚大堡礁 Great Barrier Reef—8（在线收听） |
For thousands of years, this powerful current has regenerated the reef. But it can not repair everything. Beneath the waves lie deeper scars—the largest coral reef on Earth is home to a dazzling diversity of marine species, some found nowhere else on the planet. It’s a panorama of alien shapes and riotous color, where even the flamboyant mandarin fish can blend in. These coral gardens are home to armored reptiles, and the softest of killers—the cone shell and the blue-ringed octopus, delicate, graceful and with enough venom to kill two dozen people.
While above glide giants—manta ray and wandering minke whales, it is the most diverse ecosystem known to man. But this world used to be very different, where fish now swim, birds once flew. And this whole forest of coral was once a tangle of trees and bushes.
And this man can prove it. On a remote part of Australia’s coast, geophysicist Thomas Stieglitz is looking for the last thing you’d expect to find in the ocean—freshwater.
"We’re on our way to a beach way up north. It’s in an aboriginal community, where people have told us that there’s a lot of springs on the beach. Well, if there’s water out there, where do you expect this water to come from? How does it actually get out there?"
"I think somewhere around here, there’s supposed to be a pretty big one. Just trying to find it. It’s actually quite a treacherous job. What we call quicksand, actually on beaches, can actually fall into that, cos it's such soft sand." |
| 原文地址：http://www.tingroom.com/lesson/zrbaike/2011/259916.html |