Product catalogue
Seamounts, Canyons and Reefs of the Coral Sea Marine Park
This flythrough video highlights deep and mesophotic seabed environments within the Coral Sea Marine Park, offshore northeastern Australia. The mesophotic zone, commonly referred to as the ‘twilight zone’ represents the depth range below the brightly lit shallow waters down to the maximum depth that sunlight can penetrate for photosynthesis to occur (~ 30 to 150 meters beneath the sea surface). The featured Malay and North Flinders Reefs represent mid-ocean platform reefs and Cairns Seamount hosts a thriving coral reef community atop what is likely an extinct volcanic cone. These locations represent a range of benthic communities, which vary with depth and substrate type. Soft-sediments (sands, muds and oozes) dominate the deep seafloor, with evidence of water currents that produce bedforms showing active sediment transport at these depths. The walls and flanks of the platform reefs are very steep, with evidence of slope failure where rocky head walls have collapsed and deposited large blocks and boulders on the seafloor, which provide important habitat for sessile and mobile invertebrates including soft corals and sponges as well as cryptic octopus.
Typical mesophotic habitats included vast Halimeda algal meadows and rhodolith beds interspersed with soft corals and sponges on soft-sediment. Hard substrates were typically colonised by plate and encrusting hard Scleractinian corals (e.g. Leptoseris and Montipora species), sponges and ascidians. Many large black corals (Antipatharia) and gorgonians (Octocorallia) also featured, with several black coral and carnivorous sponge observations representing new species. The reef community atop Cairns Seamount was highly diverse and included many demersal and pelagic fish species. A high abundance and diversity of gelatinous zooplankton were observed in the deep waters between reefs in the Coral Sea, with several new range extensions recorded.
Bathymetry data and seafloor imagery for this flythrough were collected on RV Falkor, owned and operated by the Schmidt Ocean Institute (SOI), during surveys FK200830 and FK200902 in August and October 2020. These surveys were led by Geoscience Australia and James Cook University. Collaborative research partners included the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, The University of Tokyo, Queensland University of Technology, Queensland Museum, The University of Sydney, University of Tasmania and the University of Wollongong.
Simple
Identification info
- Date (Creation)
- 2023-06-30
- Date (Publication)
- 2023-07-19T06:47:53
- Citation identifier
- Geoscience Australia Persistent Identifier/https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/147898
- Citation identifier
- Digital Object Identifier/https://dx.doi.org/10.26186/147898
- Cited responsible party
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Role Organisation / Individual Name Details Publisher Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)
Voice Author Mcneil, M.
Place and Communities Internal Contact Co-author Carroll, A.
Place and Communities Internal Contact Co-author Post, A.
Space Division Internal Contact Co-author Huang, Z.
Place and Communities Internal Contact Co-author Cropper, J.
Office of the Chief Scts Internal Contact Co-author Nichol, S.
Place and Communities Internal Contact
- Purpose
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Science communication and outreach
- Status
- Accepted
- Point of contact
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Role Organisation / Individual Name Details Point of contact Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)
Voice Point of contact Carroll, A.
Place and Communities Internal Contact Resource provider Place and Communities Division
External Contact
- Spatial representation type
- Topic category
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- Oceans
- Geoscientific information
- Biota
Extent
))
- Maintenance and update frequency
- As needed
Resource format
- Title
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Product data repository: Various Formats
- Protocol
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FILE:DATA-DIRECTORY
- Name of the resource
-
Data Store directory containing the digital product files
- Description
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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
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EARTH SCIENCES
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Geomorphology and Regolith and Landscape Evolution
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- Keywords
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marine
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- Keywords
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bathymetry
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- Keywords
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mesophotic
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- Keywords
-
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biota
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- Keywords
-
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Coral Sea
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- Keywords
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Published_External
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Resource constraints
- Title
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Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence
- Alternate title
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CC-BY
- Edition
-
4.0
- Addressee
-
Role Organisation / Individual Name Details User Any
- Use constraints
- License
- Use constraints
- Other restrictions
- Other constraints
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(c) Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia) 2022
Resource constraints
- Title
-
Australian Government Security Classification System
- Edition date
- 2018-11-01T00:00:00
- Classification
- Unclassified
- Classification system
-
Australian Government Security Classification System
- Language
- English
- Character encoding
- UTF8
Distribution Information
- Distributor contact
-
Role Organisation / Individual Name Details Distributor Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)
Voice facsimile
- OnLine resource
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Link to YouTube video
Link to YouTube video
- Distribution format
-
Resource lineage
- Statement
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Bathymetry data and seafloor imagery for this flythrough was collected by the Schmidt Ocean Institute (SOI) during survey FK200830 and FK200902 in August and October 2020, using ship-mounted multibeam echosounders and a remotely operated vehicle equipped with 4K video cameras. Bathymetry for North Flinders and Malay Reefs incorporated airborne LiDAR bathymetry supplied under a data use agreement with the Australian Hydrographic Office.
Metadata constraints
- Title
-
Australian Government Security Classification System
- Edition date
- 2018-11-01T00:00:00
- Classification
- Unclassified
Metadata
- Metadata identifier
-
urn:uuid/3c02499a-3476-4f33-aa5b-a7ad1b309258
- Title
-
GeoNetwork UUID
- Language
- English
- Character encoding
- UTF8
- Contact
-
Role Organisation / Individual Name Details Owner McNeil, M
Internal Contact Point of contact Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)
Voice Point of contact Carroll, A.
Place and Communities Internal Contact
Type of resource
- Resource scope
- Document
- Name
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Teaching / Outreach Document
Alternative metadata reference
- Title
-
Geoscience Australia - short identifier for metadata record with
uuid
- Citation identifier
- eCatId/147898
- Date info (Creation)
- 2023-04-24T00:59:46
- Date info (Revision)
- 2023-04-24T00:59:46
Metadata standard
- Title
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AU/NZS ISO 19115-1:2014
Metadata standard
- Title
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ISO 19115-1:2014
Metadata standard
- Title
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ISO 19115-3
- Title
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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