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In the third in a series of special reports on the nation's most extraordinary marine environments, Guardian Australia's ocean correspondent visits the proposed Great Kimberley marine park, and its amazing jewel in the crown: Horizontal Falls.

In the third in a series of special reports on the nation's most extraordinary marine environments, Guardian Australia's ocean correspondent visits the proposed Great Kimberley marine park, and its amazing jewel in the crown: Horizontal Falls.

The discovery of olive ridley sea turtle nestlings on the remote Kimberley coast is just the sixth time the species has been recorded in Western Australia.

The discovery of olive ridley sea turtle nestlings on the remote Kimberley coast is just the sixth time the species has been recorded in Western Australia.

Kimberley native title claimants fear island will be handed to fish farmer.

The Department of Fisheries says a large-scale fish kill on the Kimberley coast appears to have been a one-off, caused by warm waters and big tides.

The Department of Fisheries says a large-scale fish kill on the Kimberley coast appears to have been a one-off, caused by warm waters and big tides.

The relatively pristine coral populations of WA's inshore Kimberley region are better equipped to survive ocean warming than the World Heritage-listed Ningaloo Marine Park, according to a new CURTIN University study.

A new study has used drone technology and cutting-edge analytical methods for the first time to map the intertidal coral reefs of the Rowley Shoals off the Kimberley coast of Western Australia.

Anthropogenic climate change has caused widespread loss of species biodiversity and ecosystem productivity across the globe, particularly on tropical coral reefs. Predicting the future vulnerability of reef-building corals, the foundation species of coral reef ecosystems, is crucial for cost-effective conservation planning in the Anthropocene. In this study, we combine regional population genetic connectivity and seascape analyses to explore patterns of genetic offset (the mismatch of gene-environmental associations under future climate conditions) in Acropora digitifera across 12 degrees of latitude in Western Australia. Our data revealed a pattern of restricted gene flow and limited genetic connectivity among geographically distant reef systems. Environmental association analyses identified a suite of loci strongly associated with the regional temperature variation. These loci helped forecast future genetic offset in gradient forest and generalized dissimilarity models. These analyses predicted pronounced differences in the response of different reef systems in Western Australia to rising temperatures. Under the most optimistic future warming scenario (RCP 2.6), we predicted a general pattern of increasing genetic offset with latitude. Under the extreme climate scenario (RCP 8.5 in 2090-2100), coral populations at the Ningaloo World Heritage Area were predicted to experience a higher mismatch between current allele frequencies and those required to cope with local environmental change, compared to populations in the inshore Kimberley region. The study suggests complex and spatially heterogeneous patterns of climate-change vulnerability in coral populations across Western Australia, reinforcing the notion that regionally tailored conservation efforts will be most effective at managing coral reef resilience into the future.

The third global bleaching event took its toll on Western Australia's super-corals.

A PHOTO of Roebuck Bay just south of Broome, snapped by a curious astronaut on the International Space Station, has called into question the origin of some of the region's highly-unusual parallel tidal creeks.

Strange and unusual deep sea creatures revealed by CSIRO scientists off north-west WA.