Shapes of the Maldives Islands

This is an old post from 2010:

The Atolls of the Maldives are very complex structures and the country itself is formed from 26 natural atolls which are now divided into 20 for administrative purposes.

Built vigilantly over thousands of years, like necklaces draped along an undersea plateau, 1,200 coral islands, each island is unique in its shape and full of wonders. These ring shaped coral structures can be tens of kilometres in diameter with individual reefs large enough to support the beautiful islands.

A British Captain Robert Moresby drew the first accurate maritime charts of the Maldives in 1834-36 and they were used by Maldivian navigators to sail through Maldives until the 1990s.

Perhaps one of the most interesting features of the Maldives, apart from its breath taking beauty, is the unique shapes of the islands. From about, we could spot islands with a green, white, turquoise blue surrounded by navy blue or deep blue combination. Again, this could vary in unimaginable shapes, at time only the sand deposit shifts around the island, changing the shapes of the island seasonally and some island look really interesting from the time of its creation.

Here is some of the visual process of the most beautiful islands in the world in the making.  Largely the islands take share similar to the base reef the island is built on.

On some rare cases where the reef is excessively large, and the island that come through the surface is small, it may take many different shapes before settling with vegetation where roots or lose coral may define boundaries.  This is how the islands are “born”.

This is an interesting shape of reef which i thought was worth sharing.

First that little island roots out from the depth of the Indian Ocean. Than we see little island or sand bank buds from the reef and starts collecting drifting waste, woods and almost anything that will prepare the sand bank capable of attracting birds of seed.  Than little greens patches starts appears..

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Here is the same process with different shape of the islands.

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It is sad that at the end we go and damage the beauty in the name of life, development and living. Male’, as and island would have been a beautiful place now no more!

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Here are some of the islands which are distinctively different and beautiful in their shape.

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