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Gascoyne Marine Park Post-survey report, RV Falkor, FK200308 (GA4859)

The deep waters within the Gascoyne Marine Park have been largely unexplored for their seafloor biodiversity. Survey FK200308 on the RV Falkor targeted two canyons within the Gascoyne Marine Park to understand and map the distribution and diversity of marine habitats and biota within the Cape Range and Cloates Canyons. These canyons were targeted to better understand their ecological significance as a conduit between shelf environments adjacent to the Ningaloo Reef and the abyssal plain. They occur within the habitat protection and multiple use zones of the Gascoyne Marine Park off north-western Australia.

Survey FK200308 was led by researchers at the Western Australian Museum, and included scientists from Geoscience Australia, Curtin University, Macquarie University and Scripps Institute of Oceanography. Multibeam sonar was used to map parts of the marine park, while a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) was deployed to undertake a comprehensive taxon inventory of the North-West canyon fauna based on underwater imagery and sampling. Additional biological samples were collected via plankton sampling, as well as fish and crustacean traps on a lander, and stand-alone fish trap deployments. Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structures (ARMS) were deployed at select sites to capture cryptic benthic organisms over several years. DNA samples from the water column (eDNA) were collected to enable a broader understanding of the biodiversity of the region, and to provide a methodological comparison to the organisms present at the time of sampling.

The key drivers for this survey were to collect Information to enhance our understanding of the Gascoyne Marine Park and deep-sea environments throughout Western Australia, and to facilitate comparisons between the north-west and eastern and southern Australian deep-sea waters. This information can be applied to inform management plans, scientific research and industry activities for the North-West. Specifically, this survey provided:

• A faunal inventory as a baseline information for monitoring deep water WA environments. A total of 2570 seafloor images were annotated from quantitative transects, more than 1000 specimens were collected and up to 30 new species discovered.

• High resolution mapping of the seafloor across an area of 11,250 km2 revealed a detailed understanding of seabed habitats and environments in the Gascoyne Marine Park, and a regional context in which to interpret the faunal inventory.

• Repeat multibeam mapping of the Cape Range and Cloates Canyons informed our understanding of seabed stability in the canyons of the Gascoyne Marine park, illustrating a rare case of true monitoring using multibeam in Australian waters.

• The use of a state-of-the-art ROV across 20 deployments helped inform a new ROV field manual (Monk et al. 2020), adding to the existing suite of standard operating procedures supported by Parks Australia ( https://marine-sampling-field-manual.github.io/).

This survey confirmed that canyons within the Gascoyne Marine Park are important ecological systems, supporting numerous deep-sea species, many of which were discovered to be new to science. The advanced capabilities of the ROV SuBastian to navigate and image complex near vertical walls and overhangs within the canyons revealed patterns in the distribution of the seafloor taxa consistent with small-scale environmental variability. Repeat multibeam mapping revealed a dynamic canyon system that continues to be shaped by turbidity events. The occurrence of reworked seagrass blades within the canyons provided new understanding of these canyon systems as an active conduit between shallow shelf and abyssal environments. The distribution of the seabed biota revealed through quantitative ROV transects emphasised the importance of disturbance patterns in shaping the canyon ecosystems.

Simple

Identification info

Date (Creation)
2020-08-12
Date (Publication)
2020-10-08T22:54:15
Citation identifier
Geoscience Australia Persistent Identifier/https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/144204

Citation identifier
Digital Object Identifier/http://dx.doi.org/10.11636/Record.2020.030

Cited responsible party
Role Organisation / Individual Name Details
Author

Post, A.L.

Author

Przeslawski, R.

Author

Huang, Z.

Author

Smith, D.

Author

Kirkendale, L.A.

Author

Wilson, N.G.

Name

Record

Issue identification

RECORD 2020/030

Purpose

GA Record

Status
Completed
Point of contact
Role Organisation / Individual Name Details
Point of contact

Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)

Voice
Point of contact

Post, A.L.

Resource provider

Place, Space and Communities Division

Spatial representation type
Topic category
  • Geoscientific information

Extent

Extent

N
S
E
W


Maintenance and update frequency
As needed

Resource format

Title

Product data repository: Various Formats

Website

Data Store directory containing the digital product files

Data Store directory containing one or more files, possibly in a variety of formats, accessible to Geoscience Australia staff only for internal purposes

theme.ANZRC Fields of Research.rdf
  • EARTH SCIENCES

  • Ecological Applications not elsewhere classified

  • Geomorphology and Regolith and Landscape Evolution

Discipline
  • Marine Geoscience

Discipline
  • Marine Ecology

Keywords
  • Published_External

Resource constraints

Title

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence

Alternate title

CC-BY

Edition

4.0

Website

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/

Access constraints
License
Use constraints
License

Resource constraints

Title

Australian Government Security ClassificationSystem

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

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

Classification
Unclassified
Language
English
Character encoding
UTF8

Distribution Information

Distributor contact
Role Organisation / Individual Name Details
Distributor

Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)

Voice
OnLine resource

Download the Record (docx) [14.4 MB]

Download the Record (docx) [14.4 MB]

Distribution format
  • docx

OnLine resource

Download the Record (pdf) [6.3 MB]

Download the Record (pdf) [6.3 MB]

Distribution format
  • pdf

Resource lineage

Statement

Not supplied

Metadata constraints

Title

Australian Government Security Classification System

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

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

Classification
Unclassified

Metadata

Metadata identifier
urn:uuid/1f1cf801-b47d-4bfa-987c-4b4582bbb2ce

Title

GeoNetwork UUID

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

Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)

Voice
Point of contact

Post, A.L.

Type of resource

Resource scope
Document
Name

GA publication: GA Record 2020/030

Alternative metadata reference

Title

Geoscience Australia - short identifier for metadata record with

uuid

Citation identifier
eCatId/144204

Metadata linkage

https://ecat.ga.gov.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/5167d912-6784-4371-9938-3931e84ca6f1

Metadata linkage

https://ecat.ga.gov.au:80/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/1f1cf801-b47d-4bfa-987c-4b4582bbb2ce

Metadata linkage

https://ecat.ga.gov.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/1f1cf801-b47d-4bfa-987c-4b4582bbb2ce

Date info (Creation)
2019-04-08T01:55:29
Date info (Revision)
2019-04-08T01:55:29

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

Marine Ecology Marine Geoscience
theme.ANZRC Fields of Research.rdf
EARTH SCIENCES Ecological Applications not elsewhere classified Geomorphology and Regolith and Landscape Evolution

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