Product catalogue
Australian Multibeam Guidelines
The Australian Multibeam Guidelines were established by the AusSeabed consortium. The guidelines provide recommended procedures for survey planning, data acquisition and submission. They are designed for a range of audiences, from those experienced in seafloor mapping using multibeam sonar systems, non-experts who are developing mapping capabilities, and those contracting seafloor mapping surveys using swath systems.
These guidelines aim to improve interoperability, discoverability and accessibility of MBES system data, and encourage improved acquisition standards to better meet end-user requirements. We acknowledge that to achieve such an aim, adaptation of the project might be necessary and could impact time and cost. However, in most cases, the inconvenience of varying parameters will be outweighed by the increased utility of the data to a wider user base.
These guidelines aim to provide a standard set of requirements for seafloor mapping activities conducted in Australian waters and comply with international initiatives (such as Seabed2030) to ensure that national efforts can provide global impact. They are designed to complement the purpose-based requirements and associated documentation related to specific survey requirements (e.g., hydrographic surveys; seabed infrastructure planning or installation).
The guidelines include a broad examination of data processing and guidance for data submission with recommendations for all three types of swath acoustic data (bathymetry, backscatter and water column backscatter) relevant across all water depths and adopt international guidelines where appropriate. They do not include instrument preparation activities such as bench/workshop tests, personnel requirements, or provide survey costing information. This revision of the Australian Multibeam Guidelines (version 2) contains information previously published in the Seafloor Mapping Field Manual for Multibeam Sonar (Lucieer et al., 2018) as chapter 8 (Multibeam acoustics for marine monitoring) and, as such, will also succeed the Seafloor Mapping Field Manual for Multibeam Sonar as chapter 3 in the second release of the National Environmental Science Program (NESP) Field manuals for Marine Sampling to Monitor Australian Waters (Przeslawski and Foster, 2018). The decision to make this extension to the guidelines and inclusion in the NESP suite of Field Manuals was made by AusSeabed and the NESP to allow both initiatives to continue with a single reference document to inform seabed mapping and eliminate the complications and community confusion associated with the maintenance of two reference documents with extensive overlap.
Simple
Identification info
- Date (Creation)
- 2018-06-22T00:00:00
- Date (Publication)
- 2018-06-26T01:57:32
- Date (Revision)
- 2019-04-09T01:08:55
- Date (Revision)
- 2019-05-16T23:14:45
- Citation identifier
- Geoscience Australia Persistent Identifier/https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/121571
- Citation identifier
- Digital Object Identifier/http://dx.doi.org/10.11636/Record.2018.019
- Cited responsible party
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Role Organisation / Individual Name Details Author Picard, K.
Author Austine, K.
Author Bergersen, N.
Author Cullen, R.
Author Dando, N.
Author Donohue, D.
Author Edwards, S.
Author Ingleton, T.
Author Jordan, A.
Author Lucieer, V.
Author Parnum, I.
Author Siwabessy, J.
Author Spinoccia, M.
Author Talbot-Smith, R.
Author Waterson, C.
Author Barrett, N.
Author Beaman, R.
Author Bergerson, D.
Author Boyd, M.
Author Brace, B.
Author Brooke, B.
Author Cantrill, O.
Author Case, M.
Author Daniell, J.
Author Dunne, S.
Author Fellows, M.
Author Harris, U.
Author Ierodiaconou, D.
Author Johnstone, E.
Author Kennedy, P.
Author Leplastrier, A.
Author Lewis, A.
Author Lytton, S.
Author Mackay, K.
Author McLennan, S.
Author Mitchell, C.
Author Monk, J.
Author Nichol, S.
Author Post, A.
Author Price, A.
Author Przeslawski, R.
Author Pugsley, L.
Author Quadros, N.
Author Smith, J.
Author Stewart, W.
Author Sullivan, J.
Author Townsend, N.
Author Tran, M.
Author Whiteway, T.
- Name
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Record
- Issue identification
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2018/19
- Point of contact
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Role Organisation / Individual Name Details Point of contact Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)
Voice Point of contact Lennard, N.
Place and Communities Internal Contact Resource provider Place, Space and Communities Division
- Spatial representation type
- Topic category
-
- Geoscientific information
Extent
Temporal element
- Time period
- 2018-01-01 2019-01-01
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
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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
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multibeam
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- theme.ANZRC Fields of Research.rdf
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EARTH SCIENCES
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- Product
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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
- Access constraints
- License
- Use constraints
- License
Resource constraints
- Title
-
Australian Government Security ClassificationSystem
- Edition date
- 2018-11-01T00:00:00
- Classification
- Unclassified
- Language
- English
- Character encoding
- UTF8
Distribution Information
- Distributor contact
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Role Organisation / Individual Name Details Distributor Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)
Voice
- OnLine resource
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Download the Record (docx) [2.5 MB]
Download the Record (docx) [2.5 MB]
- Distribution format
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docx
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- OnLine resource
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Download the Record (pdf) [2.2 MB]
Download the Record (pdf) [2.2 MB]
- Distribution format
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pdf
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Resource lineage
- Statement
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This is the second version of the guidelines.
- Hierarchy level
- Document
Metadata constraints
- Title
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Australian Government Security ClassificationSystem
- Edition date
- 2018-11-01T00:00:00
- Classification
- Unclassified
Metadata
- Metadata identifier
-
urn:uuid/854f5bbd-91fd-4f64-82ab-59662ce3aa89
- Title
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GeoNetwork UUID
- Language
- English
- Character encoding
- UTF8
- Contact
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Role Organisation / Individual Name Details Point of contact Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)
Voice Point of contact Lennard, N.
Place and Communities Internal Contact
Type of resource
- Resource scope
- Document
- Name
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GA Record
Alternative metadata reference
- Title
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Geoscience Australia - short identifier for metadata record with uuid
- Citation identifier
- eCatId/121571
- Date info (Creation)
- 2025-10-16T04:33:03.338Z
- Date info (Creation)
- 2018-05-04T03:37:56
- Date info (Revision)
- 2025-10-16T04:35:09.513Z
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
- Edition date
- 2015-07-01T00:00:00
- Title
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Geoscience Australia Community Metadata Profile of ISO 19115-1:2014
- Edition
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Version 2.0, September 2018
- Citation identifier
- https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/122551