Shark Bay, Australia

SHARK BAY (Australia)

Shark Bay and its islands are at the westernmost point of the Australian continent, about 500 miles north of Perth. The vast sea-grass beds are the largest and richest in the world, and home to 10,000 or so dugongs ("sea cows"), about 1/8 of the world's population. And its stromatolites (hard deposits formed by colonies of algae) are among the oldest lifeforms on earth.

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(Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons; CTTO)

The Great Barrier Reef

THE GREAT BARRIER REEF (off the coast of Queensland, Australia)

The world's largest coral reef system, off the coast of Queensland, Australia, is 1,400 miles long and 133,000 square miles in area, with over 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands. Built by billions of tiny organisms, it is the largest living structure on earth, and can be seen from outer space. The reef has lost more than half its coral cover since 1985.

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(Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons; CTTO)

The Sydney Opera House

THE SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE (Sydney, Australia)

This 1973 "urban sculpture" at the tip of a peninsula projecting into Sydney Harbour is made of groups of interlocking sail-shaped shells housing two main performance halls and several smaller ones, plus a recording studio and a restaurant. Taking 15 years to build, many of them swamped in controversy, at last it stands as tall as a 22-story building.

(Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons; CTTO)