Turquoise Braided Tidal Bay

While this might look like a masterpiece from the Museum of Modern Art's walls, we're actually on the opposite side of the world from West 53rd Street. Our aerial shot shows Shark Bay, the westernmost point in Australia—a spot known not only for its 28 species of sharks, but also for two other lifeforms of interest. One is the dugong, or sea cow, a cousin to the manatee that numbers more than 10,000 within the bay. The other is less cute (not to mention less alive) but perhaps even more fascinating: Layered microbial fossils called stromatolites—the remains of some of the oldest known organisms—dot the shallows of the bay.