Climate change resulting in more frequent flooding of the Wooramel River that leads into Shark Bay is threatening the unique ‘living rock fossils’ that make Shark Bay a World Heritage site. These stromatolites – rocky structures formed over millennia by blue-green algae or cyanobacteria in which a new kind of chlorophyll has been found – thrive in Shark Bay’s Hamelin Pool, where an unusual undersea landscape has created an environment twice as saline as normal seawater.
Emeritus Prof Diana Walker, Oceans Institute, UWA
http://www.news.uwa.edu.au/201111104129/research/shark-bay-stromatolites-risk-climate-change