Andy Brown.,age 12j, of TuIsa OK for his question;

How is an island formed?

There arc many ways for an island to grow. Each island or group of islands has its own fascinating story to tell. An island may be; merely a high hill in the ocean floor. The tops of undersea mountains in the Atlantic poke above the water to form the islands of the Azores,

An island may be a piece of land separated from a continent. The sea has flooded in to separate the British isles from Europe arid maybe the Aleutian Islands from the land masses of Asia and America. The islands around Tierra del Fuego are: the swamped peaks of the southern Andes.

The island continent of Australia. is said to have broken off  away from the more northern land masses. Certain small islands actually grow up from the; floor of the ocean. The Philippines grew from the debris of deep underwater volcanos. The atolls of the Pacific were built by corals. These sea animals build apartment houses, story upon story, made .from generations of hard shells. Finally a rock or reef of coral breaks the surface of the water and becomes an island.