Geoscience Australia Survey 266: Seabed Processes and Seagrass Health in Torres Strait

Geoscience Australia survey 266 provides preliminary results from a 2004 marine survey in central Torres Strait near Turnagain Island. The survey investigated seabed geomorphology and sedimentary processes to infer their effects on seagrass distribution, abundance, and survival. It was part of a larger Reef CRC program addressing threats from seagrass dieback to dugong, turtle, and indigenous islander communities.

Use Cases

• Assessing seabed geomorphology changes near Turnagain Island based on survey data.
• Modeling relationships between sedimentary processes and seagrass dieback events.
• Informing conservation strategies for dugong and turtle populations affected by habitat loss.
• Supporting indigenous community resource management with physical and biological process data.

Strengths

• Dataset is part of a structured field-based program managed by the Reef CRC, indicating organized data collection.
• Cross-platform presence on data.gov.au suggests official recognition and potential for integration with other marine datasets.

Limitations

• Key metadata such as row count, file size, specific columns, and license are consistently missing across all sources.
• The data is described as a 'preliminary report' from 2004, which may indicate it is not a final, processed dataset.
• Conflicting 'last updated' timestamps (2026-05-04 and 2026-04-28) on the same platform create uncertainty about version control.

Provenance

Source

Geoscience Australia, conducted as part of a Reef CRC program.

Collection Method

Marine survey (survey 266) involving field-based data collection.

Time Range

2004

Freshness

Metadata was last updated in May 2026, but the underlying survey data is from 2004.

Geography

Central Torres Strait, specifically the vicinity of Turnagain Island, Australia (Queensland).