Central Western Shelf Province

The Zuytdorp Cliffs are dramatic limestone seacliffs which extend along the southern coastline from the northern tip of the Edel Land peninsula to the mouth of the Murchison River near Kalbarri.

[3] Shark Bay is a large sheltered embayment, nearly enclosed by Bernier, Dorre, and Dirk Hartog islands and Edel Land.

[3] The biota of the province is characterised by a suite of subtropical species, whose range generally extends northwards along the Ningaloo Coast, and southwards into the South Western Shelf Transition, particularly the Houtman Abrolhos reefs and Archipelago.

This faunal community was recognised in Barry Hutchins' survey of reef fish (1994), and represents the southern part of G. P. Whitley’s (1937) Dampierian Province.

Stromatolites, rare colonies of cyanobacteria and other bacteria which form microbial mats up to a meter high, are found in sheltered lagoons.