<p dir="ltr">The world's newest marine sanctuary, announced this week, encompasses 18,000 square miles (over 46,000 square kilometers) of ocean around the central African nation of Gabon. (See "<a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/11/141113-gabon-marine-sanctuary-africa-oceans-science/">Gabon Announces World's Newest Underwater Reserve, Rich in Threatened Wildlife</a>.")</p><p dir="ltr">The area is home to more than 20 species of sharks and rays, including threatened species like great hammerhead sharks, manta rays, whale sharks, and tiger sharks. (Read <a href="http://tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/MncM4">"Saving Africa's Eden"</a> in <em>National Geographic</em><em> </em>magazine.)</p><p dir="ltr">Its protection had been a major aim of <a href="http://ocean.nationalgeographic.com/ocean/explore/pristine-seas/">National Geographic's Pristine Seas</a> project, which conducted a marine survey of parts of the nation's almost 500-mile (800-kilometer) coastline in 2012.</p><p dir="ltr">"National Geographic's Pristine Seas project looks for the wildest places in the ocean, to inspire leaders to save them before it's too late; Gabon was probably the only such place left in West Africa," says <a href="http://www.nationalgeographic.com/explorers/bios/enric-sala/">National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Enric Sala</a>, leader of the Pristine Seas project.</p><p dir="ltr">In the pictures that follow, Sala and National Geographic photographer <a href="http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photographers/photographer-michael-nichols/">Michael "Nick" Nichols</a> capture Gabon's vibrant underwater life. Above, an eel slithers through coral patches off an oil platform in Gabon in a picture shot by Sala.</p><p dir="ltr"><em>—By Kennedy Warne and Linda Qiu, photo gallery by Nicole Werbeck </em></p>