Editing Atoll (section)

== Investigation by the Royal Society of London==
[[File:Wake Island air.JPG|thumb|Aerial overview of the [[Wake Island]] atoll, part of the [[Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument]]]]

In 1896, 1897 and 1898, the [[Royal Society of London]] carried out drilling on [[Funafuti]] atoll in [[Tuvalu]] for the purpose of investigating the [[formation of coral reefs]]. They wanted to determine whether traces of shallow water organisms could be found at depth in the [[coral]] of Pacific atolls. This investigation followed the work on [[The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs|the structure and distribution of coral reefs]] conducted by [[Charles Darwin]] in the Pacific.

The first expedition in 1896 was led by Professor [[William Johnson Sollas]] of the [[University of Oxford]]. Geologists included [[Walter George Woolnough]] and [[Edgeworth David]] of the [[University of Sydney]]. Professor Edgeworth David led the expedition in 1897.<ref name="davidcm1" /> The third expedition in 1898 was led by Alfred Edmund Finckh.<ref name="finckhae1" /><ref name="cantrellc1" /><ref name="rodgerska1" />