Shark Bay is home to some of the oldest lifeforms on Earth

Shark Bay is home to some of the oldest lifeforms on Earth. Today’s Image of the Day from NASA Earth Observatory features Shark Bay, Australia, which is home to 28 different shark species.

Shark Bay contains the largest beds of seagrasses in the world. Scientists estimate that around eight million tons of leaf material grows every year across the underwater seagrass meadows. Shark Bay is home to some of the oldest lifeforms on Earth

The bay is also home to endangered green and loggerhead turtles, as well as some of the oldest lifeforms on Earth.

The islands, peninsulas, and waters of Shark Bay cover more than 9,000 square miles. 

The image was captured on September 30, 2020 by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite.

Shark Bay (Malgana: Gutharraguda, “two waters”) is a World Heritage Site in the Gascoyne region of Western Australia. The 23,000-square-kilometre (8,900 sq mi)^[1] area is located approximately 800 kilometres (500 mi) north of Perth, on the westernmost point of the Australian continent. UNESCO‘s official listing of Shark Bay as a World Heritage Site reads:

Shark Bay’s waters, islands and peninsulas….have a number of exceptional natural features, including one of the largest and most diverse seagrass beds in the world. However it is for its stromatolites (colonies of microbial mats that form hard, dome-shaped deposits which are said to be the oldest life forms on earth), that the property is most renowned. The property is also famous for its rich marine life including a large population of dugongs, and provides a refuge for a number of other globally threatened species

Image Credit: NASA Earth Observatory 

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By Chrissy Sexton, Earth.com Staff Writer