Carnarvon Shelf Reef Polygons Digitized from 2008 Multibeam Survey

Manually digitized reef polygons from the Carnarvon Shelf were created from multibeam echosounder data collected on marine survey GA0308 in August and September 2008. Reef areas were defined as exposed, hard substrate raised above the surrounding seafloor and mapped at a scale of 1:10,000 using bathymetry, backscatter, and derivatives like slope and contours. This dataset is published with the permission of the CEO, Geoscience Australia.

Use Cases

• Modeling reef habitat distribution based on mapped hard substrate polygons.
• Analyzing seafloor geomorphology based on bathymetry and slope derivatives.
• Planning marine protected areas based on digitized reef locations and extents.
• Integrating reef data with other marine spatial layers for ecological studies.

Strengths

• Features were mapped at a detailed scale of 1:10,000.
• Data derived from a specific marine survey (GA0308) conducted in August/September 2008.
• Polygons were created using multiple data sources including bathymetry, backscatter, and derived products.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Data may reflect geographic and temporal bias inherent to the single 2008 survey.
• Row count and dataset size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

Geoscience Australia, via the Australian Ocean Data Network.

Collection Method

Manual digitization from multibeam echosounder datasets.

Time Range

August/September 2008.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-04 23:25:15.910057; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Carnarvon Shelf, Australia.