8. The Pristine Shell-Covered Shores of Shark Bay, Australia
Shark Bay, in the far regions of Western Australia, is a natural beauty that challenges accepted ideas of what makes a beach. As its name implies, Shell Beach is covered in a dense blanket of little white cockle shells spanning hundreds of km along the shore rather than sand at all. The result of a special mix of environmental conditions that have endured for thousands of years, this amazing scene produces an ecosystem unlike anywhere else on Earth. Shell Beach's creation is directly related to Shark Bay's hypersaline waters, where salinity levels could reach two to three times those of ordinary saltwater. Although many kinds of marine life find these harsh temperatures hostile, several species of cockles—especially the Fragum erugatum—have the ideal habitat here. Thriving in the hypersaline waters, these little bivalve molluscs reproduce in great numbers and gather in massive amounts along the shoreline. As generations of cockles lived and perished over time, their shells accumulated on the beach, building layers in some places down to 10 metres. As more cockles finish their life cycles, fresh layers are continuously added to the beach, therefore facilitating the process of shell accumulation. The effect is an almost surreal scene where the immaculate white shells extend far as the eye can see and crush underfoot. For guests, who sometimes compare walking on the beach to negotiating a field of snow, the lack of sand and the homogeneity of the shell coverage produce a singular sensory experience. Particularly between sunrise and sunset when the low angle of the sun sets the entire beach aglow, the bleached white shells themselves reflect light in brilliant ways, polished smooth by the action of waves and wind.
