Shark Bay World Heritage Area, Western Australia

May 09, 2013

Shark Bay 位於西澳,是自然的世界遺產,位於伯斯以北約800公理,海灣覆蓋了大約10000平方米的區域，平均深度為10米。它被很多淺灘分割為很多半島和島嶼。海岸線長約1500公里。鯊魚灣坐落在三大主要氣候帶的過渡地帶，也處在兩個植物學區域的中間,有非常豐富的海洋生態,保育許多頻臨絕種的生物,因此被列為自然的世界遺產.
在海灣南邊的哈美林池（en:Hamelin Pool, Western Australia），由微生物藍綠藻所搭建的疊層岩已經有超過3000年的歷史。哈美林池有著世界上最豐富多樣的疊層岩類型,這是全世界最古老的生物,單細胞藍綠藻stromatolites,被稱為活化石.
這裡還有全世界最大的海底草原,所以這裡孕育許多海底生物.超過10000頭儒艮（海牛),許多海豚.這裡還生存著26種澳大利亞瀕危的哺乳動物，超過230種鳥類以及將近150種爬行動物。這裡也是魚類、甲殼類和腔腸動物類的重要繁殖及生長的地方。這裡有323種魚類，包括很多的鯊魚和軟骨魚綱。
我們在這裡住了3天欣賞白沙海灘,石灰岩峭壁的海灣,還可以觀察許多海中生物,尋找海底草原,非常有趣難忘的沙魚灣.
Shark Bay World Heritage Area covers 2.2 million hectares on the coast of Western Australia. Its colourful and diverse landscapes are home for a profusion of animals and plants, including some found nowhere else on Earth. Its vast seagrass meadows feed and shelter globally endangered species. Complex interactions between these plants, the climate and the marine environment have allowed unusual ‘living fossils’, stromatolites, to thrive, much as they did at the dawn of time. Shark Bay’s extraordinary natural riches are of outstanding global significance.
Stromatolites are rock-like structures built by microbes (single-celled cyanobacteria, also known as blue-green algae). Shark Bay’s stromatolites are only 2,000 to 3,000 years old, but they are similar to life forms found on Earth up to 3.5 billion years ago! Hamelin Pool is one of only three places on Earth where you can see living marine stromatolites. (The other two places are in the Bahamas.) Stromatolites are found in Hamelin Pool because its water is twice as salty as normal seawater. Few predators and competitors can survive these conditions, allowing the microbes to flourish and form stromatolites much as they did billions of years ago.