Carnarvon Shelf Reef Polygons Digitized from Multibeam Survey

Carnarvon Shelf reef polygons are a geospatial dataset of exposed, hard substrate reef areas. The polygons were manually digitized from multibeam echosounder data collected on marine survey GA0308 in August and September 2008. This dataset is published with the permission of the CEO, Geoscience Australia.

Use Cases

• Analyze reef polygon shapes and sizes to study habitat extent and connectivity.
• Overlay reef polygons with bathymetry derivatives like slope and contours for seafloor terrain analysis.
• Use digitized reef features mapped at 1:10,000 scale for high-resolution marine spatial planning.

Strengths

• Features were mapped at a detailed scale of 1:10,000.
• Data derived from multibeam echosounder surveys, providing direct seafloor measurements.

Limitations

• Dataset size, row count, and specific column structure are unknown.
• Data is from a single survey in 2008, offering a snapshot rather than temporal series.

Provenance

Source

Australian Ocean Data Network, with permission from Geoscience Australia.

Collection Method

Polygons were manually digitized from multibeam echosounder datasets and bathymetric derivatives.

Time Range

Survey conducted in August/September 2008.

Freshness

Metadata indicates a last update in April 2026, but the underlying survey data is from 2008.

Geography

Carnarvon Shelf, Australia.