Do you know what these are?

Animal, vegetable or mineral?

While they look like rocks 50cm high they are ancient forms of microbial communities that photosynthesize (produce energy from sunlight). They obtain calcium carbonate from the water to form these structures that are about 2000 years old. 

600,000,000 years ago the ancestors of these THROMBOLITES and stromatolites produced the oxygen needed for life . Today you can only find them in a few places of Western Australia and the world. 

These are in Lake Clifton just south of Mandurah. I had heard of the stromatolites before which are similar but structured in layers while these are in clot formations. So there is your lesson for the day. 

We are staying in Dawesville ( sounds like a town in the Wild West) on the southern side of Mandurah. Established by white settlers in 1831. It didn’t grow much until 1987 when it was declared a town, and soon after reached city status. Now it has over 100,000 people and was found to be the least affordable city in Australia. The climate and geography create perfect conditions for tornadoes and it says on wiki that it has one of the highest densities of tornadoes in the world. Amazing what travel teaches you, we didn’t even know this place existed before.