Jennifer Bicheral, age 12, of Ottawa 7, Ontario, Canada, for her question:

Where is coral mainly found?

Most coral reefs are near the shores of warm and tropical seas. Atolls or coral islands tend to form in deeper waters of the world's mild oceans. This is because most of the little coral polyps who build these stony structures cannot abide temperatures below 65 degrees Fahrenheit. However, a few species have adapted to life in cooler seas. Smallish tufts of coral form off New England and a few little coral creatures even live and build their stony apartment houses in the chilly Arctic Ocean.

In the main, however, most of the world's coral formations lie between the semi tropical belts north and south of the equator. The most massive reef is off Australia. Other coral reefs crowd off the shores and among the islands of the Indian Ocean. Countless coral islands abound in the mid Pacific. There are other formations offshore in the warm regions of the Atlantic. In the dim past, tiny coral polyps helped to build a stony platform that later emerged from the sea and became the Florida Peninsula.