Early Holocene Coral Reef Growth and Submergence in the Gulf of Carpentaria

A newly discovered coral reef province in Australia's Gulf of Carpentaria, documented through multibeam sonar, drill cores, and underwater video. The dataset includes seven mapped reefs, with U/Th dating showing growth commenced around 10.5 thousand years ago and persisted for approximately 2.0 thousand years. Data was aggregated by the Australian Ocean Data Network and last updated in May 2026.

Use Cases

• Modeling reef growth rates (0.95 to 4 m kyr-1) against rapid sea-level rise (>10 m kyr-1) based on the described measurements.
• Analyzing the timing and duration of reef colonization and submergence during the Early Holocene based on the provided U/Th age data.
• Mapping relict reef features and correlating them with Pleistocene sea-level stillstands based on core sample depths of 27 and 30 meters.

Strengths

• Includes multibeam sonar mapping, drill cores, and underwater video data, suggesting multiple data modalities.
• Contains U/Th dating providing a temporal framework from ~10.5 to ~8.0 kyr BP.
• Documents a previously unknown reef province with seven confirmed reefs and up to 50 potential reefs.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count and dataset scale are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data may reflect geographic bias inherent to the specific study region in the Gulf of Carpentaria.

Provenance

Source

Australian Ocean Data Network

Collection Method

Multibeam sonar mapping, drill core sampling, and underwater video data collection.

Time Range

Early Holocene, approximately 10.5 to 8.0 thousand years before present.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-04 23:38:36.095672; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Gulf of Carpentaria, Australia.