Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Old living rocks

After our brief respite at the Billabong Roadhouse, fortified by a 'roo burger and other sundry roadhouse confections, we made our way to Hamelin Pool.  Hamelin Pool is basically a bunch of rocks on the sea shore.  It doesn't sound very interesting, does it?  It's pretty and all ...

From Perth2014

Well, there were some birds ...
From Perth2014

And this rock made out of shells was pretty cool ... (I guess it's probably not actually a "rock" but I lack the proper term for it)

From Perth2014

From Perth2014

These are the rocks that Hamelin Pool is known for.  But they're not rocks - they're actually living colonies of marine organisms called stromatolites!  These colonies have been growing for thousands of years.  Fossil stromatolites have been found that are over 3.5 billion years old!  Holy crap.
From Perth2014


A lone stromatolite:
From Perth2014

Stromatolite field!
From Perth2014


No comments:

Post a Comment