Marine Geoscience
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This data provides an illustrative representation of the international coastline. Land mass has been grouped as continents and are represented as polygons.
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Survey FK200308 on the R/V Falkor undertook detailed mapping within two significant and biologically unexplored submarine canyons (Cape Range and Cloates Canyon) in the Gascoyne Marine Park. The Gascoyne Marine Park covers 81, 766 km2 adjacent to the Ningaloo Marine Park. The canyons form part of the habitat protection and multiple use zones of the marine park and are identified as Key Ecological Features. The canyons provide an important connection between the abyssal plain environments and the Commonwealth waters adjacent to Ningaloo Reef on the continental shelf. High productivity aided by upwelling through the canyons has been related to aggregations of whale sharks, manta rays, humpback whales, sea snakes, sharks, large predatory fish and seabirds. In addition, the hard canyon walls provide habitat for a range of sessile invertebrates, while the soft sediments on the canyon floor support a range of mobile invertebrates. The data from this survey will provide a comprehensive taxonomic survey to characterise the marine biodiversity of the canyons or to understand the distribution of canyon habitats in relation to the seabed morphology. The SuBastian ROV was used to acquire high-resolution video and collect samples. SuBastian is a custom-built work class ROV that conducts scientific work down to 4500m. It is equipped with a Sulis Subsea Z70 deep sea science camera with 4K UHD 2160p optics and sensors for temperature, depth, conductivity and oxygen. Twenty ROV dives were completed across 16 stations, and these included 12 quantitative imagery transects within the Cape Range Canyon. No quantitative transects were conducted in the Cloates Canyon. The quantitative transects were run for 500 m upslope, ideally at a speed of 0.3 knots and an altitude of 2 m above the seafloor or rock walls.
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The datasets measure the Euphotic Depth (Zeu) of Australian oceans. They are derived products from MODIS (aqua) images using NASA's SeaDAS image processing software. The extent of the datasets covers the entire Australian EEZ and surrounding waters (including the southern ocean). The spatial resolution of the datasets is 0.01 dd. The datasets contain 36 monthly Zeu layers between 2009 and 2011. The unit of the datasets is metre.
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Topographic Slope grid represents the slope angle (in degree) of an area of seabed. It was created from the bathymetry grid obtained from the survey onboard the Mattew Flinders in 2011. Please see the metadata of the bathymetry grid for details (GeoCat no: 74915).
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As part of Geoscience Australia's commitment towards the National Environmental Programme's Marine Biodiversity Hub, we have developed a fully four-dimensional (3D x time) Lagrangian biophysical dispersal model to simulate the movement of marine larvae over large, topographically complex areas. The model operates by fusing the results of data-assimilative oceanographic models (e.g. BLUELink, HYCOM, ROMS) with individual-based particle behaviour. The model uses parallel processing on Australia's national supercomputer to handle large numbers of simulated larvae (on the order of several billion), and saves positional information as points within a relational database management system (RDBMS). The model was used to study Australia's northwest marine region, with specific attention given to connectivity patterns among Australia's north-western Commonwealth Marine Reserves and Key Ecological Features (KEFs). These KEFs include carbonate terraces, banks and reefs on the shelf that support diverse benthic assemblages of sponges and corals, and canyons that extend from the shelf edge to the continental slope and are potential biodiversity hotspots. We will show animations of larval movement near canyons within the Gascoyne CMR; larval dispersal probability clouds partitioned by depth and time; as well as matrices of connectivity values among features of interest. We demonstrate how the data can be used to identify connectivity corridors in marine environments, and how the matrices can be analysed to identify key connections within the network. Information from the model can be used to inform priorities for monitoring the performance of reserves through examining net contributions of different reserves (i.e. are they sources or sinks), and studying changes in connectivity structure through adding and removing reserve areas.
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Please note: This product has been superseded by 50m Multibeam Dataset of Australia 2018. - This tile contains all multibeam data held by Geoscience Australia on August 2012 within the specified area. The data has been gridded to 50m resolution. Some deeper data has also been interpolated within the mapped area. The image provided can be viewed on the free software CARIS Easyview, available from the CARIS website: www.caris.com under Free Downloads.
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The datasets measure the K490 parameter (Downwelling diffuse attenuation coefficient at 490 nm, a turbidity parameter) of Australian oceans. They are derived products from MODIS (aqua) images using NASA's SeaDAS image processing software. The extent of the datasets covers the entire Australian EEZ and surrounding waters (including the southern ocean). The spatial resolution of the datasets is 0.01 dd. The datasets contain 36 monthly k490 layers between 2009 and 2011. The unit of the datasets is 1/m.
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The shallow-water (<160m) marine environment around the Australian research station, Casey station (east Antarctica) is a high use area, frequently visited by both large resupply vessels and smaller workboats conducting scientific research in the area, yet high resolution modern bathymetric data in the area, as well as much of the east Antarctic continental margin, is limited. The Casey area hosts significant levels of biodiversity, but this knowledge is geographically restricted in scope (i.e. shallow depths, close to shore). This biodiversity faces pressures from human activities and effects of climate change, yet extensive knowledge gaps remain, limiting efforts to conserve and manage it effectively. Improved bathymetric surveying in this region will begin to fill these knowledge gaps by conducting representative sampling of both the physical environment and biological communities and reduce the risk to maritime operations in the region. During the period December 2014 to February 2015, a collaborative multibeam survey (Australian Antarctic Division, Royal Australian Navy and Geoscience Australia) was conducted in the shallow-water near-shore regions adjacent to Casey station and covered an area of ca. 28 km2. The survey employed Geoscience Australia's KONGSBERG EM3002 dual head sonar system mounted on an Australian Antarctic Division supplied science workboat, the RV Howard Burton. In total, the surveyed region covered ca. 34 km2, to a maximum depth of ca. 170m. The data was processed in CARIS v8 and a seafloor surface has been gridded at a resolution of 1m. Preliminary field-based interpretation of the submarine geomorphology reveal several dominant geomorphological features which can be simplified into 4 domains as follows: (1) NW and WSW trending fault and channel systems, (2) glacio-fluvial seafloor features (possible terminal moraines) within channel features, (3) bedrock basement highs and (4) `deep isolated basins.
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Please note: This product has been superseded by 50m Multibeam Dataset of Australia 2018. - This tile contains all multibeam data held by Geoscience Australia on August 2012 within the specified area. The data has been gridded to 50m resolution. Some deeper data has also been interpolated within the mapped area. The image provided can be viewed on the free software CARIS Easyview, available from the CARIS website: www.caris.com under Free Downloads.
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Please note: This product has been superseded by 50m Multibeam Dataset of Australia 2018. - This tile contains all multibeam data held by Geoscience Australia on August 2012 within the specified area. The data has been gridded to 50m resolution. Some deeper data has also been interpolated within the mapped area. The image provided can be viewed on the free software CARIS Easyview, available from the CARIS website: www.caris.com under Free Downloads.