Beagle Marine Park Seafloor Backscatter Grids at 1-Meter Resolution, 2018

11 backscatter grids covering 364 km² of the Beagle Marine Park in Bass Strait, collected from 17–26 June 2018. Geoscience Australia and the University of Tasmania acquired this data via multibeam sonar during the RV Bluefin survey to establish a baseline for benthic habitats. The work was funded by the National Environmental Science Program Marine Biodiversity Hub as part of a 10-year marine park management plan.

Use Cases

• Classifying benthic habitat types based on backscatter intensity and texture.
• Monitoring changes in seafloor composition over time using the established 2018 baseline.
• Informing marine park management decisions by integrating backscatter data with imagery and biological survey data from subsequent project phases.

Strengths

• High-resolution 1-meter gridded data provides detailed seafloor texture information.
• Covers a combined area of 364 square kilometers within a defined marine protected area.
• Data collection is documented in a published 2019 post-survey report.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for some analytical methods.

Provenance

Source

Geoscience Australia and the Institute for Marine & Antarctic Studies (University of Tasmania).

Collection Method

Multibeam sonar data acquisition from the RV Bluefin, processed into backscatter grids.

Time Range

17–26 June 2018.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-14 09:02:19.670938; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Beagle Marine Park, Bass Strait, Australia.