Shark Bay, Australia

Abstract

Shark Bay is on the East Indian Ocean in Western Australia. It is composed of a marine segment and a coastal segment. In the marine segment, there are numerous islands, a bank of seagrass that forms the biggest beds of that type in the world, and a large population of sea cow. In the littoral, microbial activity creates living deposits of stromalitos, dome-shaped deposits that are among the oldest forms of life on Earth, contributing to a singular seascape in the intertidal area. The hydrologic structure of Shark Bay has produced a basin where marine waters are hypersaline and contributed to the presence of extensive beaches consisting entirely of shells. Shark Bay is also one of the few marine areas in the world dominated by carbonates not associated with reef-building corals.