Lord Howe Rise Biogeography: Physical and Biological Features of the Tasman Sea

A 1.95 million km² region spanning tropical to cool temperate latitudes from 18.4°S to 40.3°S. This synthesis from Geoscience Australia compiles physical and biological information on the Lord Howe Rise, including data from the TAN0713 and NORFANZ surveys. The review describes the biogeography of soft sediment basins, plateaus, seamounts, and pinnacles, assessing patterns in species distribution and assemblages.

Use Cases

• Modeling species distribution based on depth-related variables and substrate types described in the review.
• Analyzing biological community differences between raised (seamounts, guyots) and subdued (basins, plateaus) bathymetric features.
• Studying latitudinal gradients in demersal fish populations across the Tasman Sea region.
• Assessing paleo-environmental processes like migration and speciation in a topographically complex marine region.

Strengths

• Covers a large spatial extent of 1.95 million km².
• Integrates data from at least two named scientific surveys (TAN0713 and NORFANZ).
• Explicitly spans a wide latitudinal range from 18.4°S to 40.3°S.

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.
• The description notes 'only limited spatially-replicated studies and no time-series data' for most of the region.

Provenance

Source

Geoscience Australia Data

Collection Method

Synthesis of physical and biological information from surveys and existing literature.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-30 13:10:23.897200; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Lord Howe Rise region, Tasman Sea (18.4°S to 40.3°S).