Hamelin Pool – Stromatolites…
by Rodney Campbell on Apr.19, 2016, under Life, Photography
We left Carnarvon and headed south towards Denham. First stop was Hamelin Pool where we’d take a look at the famous Stromatolites.
Living Rocks
NIKON D750 + 28.0-300.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 28 mm, 1/80 sec at f/9, ISO 100
Note: These photographs (especially the wider shots) look much better when larger – so click any of the images below to see larger versions in an inline overlay slideshow gallery viewer.
In the hyper-saline water of Hamelin Pool at the base of Shark Bay’s eastern gulf the rocks aren’t quite what the appear to be. They are living things, Stromatolites, which are the oldest living organisms on the planet. Some scientists believe they were the first living things on mother earth – perhaps 3.5 billion years old.
Hamelin Pool is the location of the best example in the world of living marine stromatolites. The water of Hamelin Bay is twice as saline as usual sea water because of a bar across the Bay’s entrance and rapid evaporation from the shallow water. Most living animals, which feed on the bacteria and algae of which stromatolites are composed, cannot tolerate such saline conditions. As a result stromatolites can grow here successfully, undisturbed. Most stromatolites are extremely slow growing. Those in Hamelin Pool grow at a maximum of .3mm a year, so those which are up to a metre high are hundreds if not thousands of years old.
Stromatolite Walk
NIKON D750 + 28.0-300.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 125 mm, 1/125 sec at f/9, ISO 100
Shark Bay
Shark Bay
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