Geoscience Australia's MARS database holds physical properties of marine sediments collected over a 112-year period. Samples were sourced from multiple organizations within the Australian Exclusive Economic Zone and surrounding territories. Attributes include sediment composition percentages, mean grain size, texture classification, water depth, and survey metadata.
Use Cases
- Map sediment distribution patterns based on %mud, %sand, and %gravel data.
- Analyze seabed texture and grain size correlations with water depth.
- Study long-term changes in marine sediment composition using samples from 1905 to 2017.
Strengths
- Covers a long temporal range from 1905 to 2017.
- Includes multiple sediment properties like %mud, %sand, %gravel, and mean grain size.
- Spatial coverage includes the Australian EEZ, Antarctic Territory, Christmas Island, Timor Sea, and Papua New Guinea waters.
Limitations
- Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.
- Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
- There is no consistent datum and projection due to the time span and differing collecting organizations.
Provenance
- Source
- Australian Ocean Data Network
- Collection Method
- Samples collected by marine surveys from various organizations.
- Time Range
- 1905 to 2017
- Freshness
- Last updated 2026-06-16 23:53:07.069995; freshness should be verified.
- Geography
- Australian Exclusive Economic Zone, Australian Antarctic Territory, Christmas Island (Indian Ocean), Timor Sea, waters around Papua New Guinea