Benthic Foraminifera as Environmental Indicators in Torres Strait - Gulf of Papua: In Todd, B.J., and Greene, H.G., eds., Mapping the Seafloor for Habitat Characterization

Three areas in the Torres Strait-Gulf of Papua region were selected for detailed study of sediments and benthic fossil biota. These areas form a transect across the shelf from the Fly River Delta to the shelf edge, near the northern extremity of the Great Barrier Reef. The Torres Strait-Gulf of Papua shelf is a shallow, low-gradient platform, where the shelf edge occurs between 120 and 140 m depth. In the study area, where the sediments range from muddy to gravelly carbonate sands, the sediment deposition rates are low and the relict content of sediment is often high.

The three areas show distinct differences in benthic foraminiferal assemblages as indicated by relative abundances at the order level, as well as distribution patterns of individual species; these differences are also reflected in the total microbiotic communities. Given the high relict content in the surface material across these sites, a foraminiferal preservation scale was developed to assess the extent of reworking. Taphonomic features indicate that abrasion is the main factor affecting preservation.


Despite poor preservation of the foraminiferal tests, the benthic foraminiferal species have a strong correlation to water depth, indicating that transportation pathways are short. Application of multivariate statistics to analyze the relationship between environmental attributes and the distributions of the microbiota and foraminiferal species indicates the additional importance of factors including percent carbonate mud, percent gravel, organic carbon flux, temperature, salinity and mean grain size. The benthic foraminifera produce a much stronger correlation to the environmental variables than the microbiota, indicating that these organisms can provide a detailed assessment of habitat types.

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Identification info

Date (Publication)
2007-01-01T00:00:00
Citation identifier
Geoscience Australia Persistent Identifier/https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/69554

Cited responsible party
Role Organisation / Individual Name Details
Author

Post, A.L.

 1
Author

Sbaffi, L.

 2
Author

Passlow, V.

 3
Author

Collins, D.

 4
Point of contact
Role Organisation / Individual Name Details
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EGD
Owner

Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)
Custodian

Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)

 Voice
Topic category
  • Geoscientific information

Extent

N
S
E
W


Maintenance and update frequency
Unknown
Keywords

  • External Publication

  • Monograph

Theme

  • continental shelf

Theme

  • palaeontology

Theme

  • habitat

Theme

  • seabed

Theme

  • sedimentology

Theme

  • marine

Keywords

  • AU-QLD

Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC)

  • Earth Sciences

Keywords

  • Published_External

Resource constraints

Title

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence

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CC-BY

Edition

4.0

Website

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/

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License
Use constraints
License

Resource constraints

Title

Australian Government Security ClassificationSystem

Edition date
2018-11-01T00:00:00
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https://www.protectivesecurity.gov.au/Pages/default.aspx

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Unclassified
Language
English
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UTF8

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Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)

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OnLine resource

Related Product

View the online description of the book Mapping the Seafloor for Habitat Characterization, Geological Association of Canada, Special Paper 47.

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Unknown

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Non geographic dataset
Other

External Publication

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Source data not available.

Metadata constraints

Title

Australian Government Security ClassificationSystem

Edition date
2018-11-01T00:00:00
Website

https://www.protectivesecurity.gov.au/Pages/default.aspx

Classification
Unclassified

Metadata

Metadata identifier
urn:uuid/a05f7892-edf8-7506-e044-00144fdd4fa6

Title

GeoNetwork UUID

Language
English
Character encoding
UTF8
Contact
Role Organisation / Individual Name Details
Point of contact

Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)

 Voice

Type of resource

Resource scope
Non geographic dataset
Name

nonGeographicDataset

Alternative metadata reference

Title

Geoscience Australia - short identifier for metadata record with

uuid

Citation identifier
eCatId/69554

Metadata linkage

https://ecat.ga.gov.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/a05f7892-edf8-7506-e044-00144fdd4fa6

Date info (Revision)
2018-04-22T08:50:36
Date info (Creation)
2009-09-18T00:00:00

Metadata standard

Title

AU/NZS ISO 19115-1:2014

Metadata standard

Title

ISO 19115-1:2014

Metadata standard

Title

ISO 19115-3

Title

Geoscience Australia Community Metadata Profile of ISO 19115-1:2014

Edition

Version 2.0, September 2018

Citation identifier
https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/122551

 
 

Spatial extent

N
S
E
W


Keywords

continental shelf habitat marine palaeontology seabed sedimentology

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