Luconia Shoals
- Landsat 7
- Path 120 Row 056
- 11 May 2000
The Luconia Shoals (sometimes also known as the Luconia Reefs) represent one of the largest and least known reef complexes of the South China Sea. They are located at the southern reaches of the South China Sea, lying southwest from the southernmost members of the widely scattered Spratly Islands and 100 km off the Sarawak coast of Borneo — as such, they fall under Malaysian jurisdiction. Extensive oil and gas reserves are found within the Luconia Shoals region. The above image is centred on the passage between the two largest reef structures of North Luconia.
There is no emergent land at the Luconia Shoals; instead, the reefs are entirely submerged or awash, consisting of ancient, steep-sided carbonate structures at depths of between 5 and 40 m below sea level. The entire group extends over several hundred square kilometers.
The Luconia Shoals consist of two main units separated from one another by around 30 km: the North Luconia Shoals and the South Luconia Shoals. The southern group consists of a small sunken reef on the southwest and a larger group of six small reefs to the east (Comus Shoal, Connell Reef, Herald Reef and Richmond Reef). The northern group has three large, approximately oval-shaped, submerged reefs that have the appearance of sunken atoll formations. Their rims are broken into short reefs segments and enclose deep central lagoons. Major reefs here include: Hayes Reef, Seahorse Shoals, Tripp Reef, Moody Reef, Hardie Reef and Friendship Shoal.
image: millenium coral reefs landsat archive/usf millenium global coral reef mapping project/nasa seawifs/nasa jsc
