Carnarvon Shelf Reef Polygons from 2008 Survey

August/September 2008 marine survey GA0308 collected multibeam echosounder data used to manually digitize reef polygons on the Carnarvon Shelf. Reefs were defined as exposed, hard substrate raised above the surrounding seafloor and mapped at a 1:10,000 scale using bathymetry, backscatter, and derivatives like slope and contours. This dataset provides a geospatial baseline for the reef structures in this Western Australian region.

Use Cases

• Marine habitat mapping based on digitized reef polygon boundaries.
• Analysis of reef geomorphology using derived attributes like slope and hillshading.
• Establishing environmental baselines for the Carnarvon Shelf Key Ecological Feature.
• Integration with other marine datasets using the provided geospatial polygons.

Strengths

• Features were manually digitized from high-resolution multibeam echosounder data, suggesting detailed human annotation.
• Data was mapped at a precise scale of 1:10,000, indicating a consistent and detailed mapping resolution.
• Derived from a specific, documented marine survey (GA0308) conducted in August/September 2008.

Limitations

• Critical metadata is missing from all sources, including column names, row count, file size, license, and author.
• The dataset's temporal coverage is limited to a single survey period in 2008, with no indication of updates.
• Conflicting 'last updated' dates (2026-04-30 vs 2026-03-07) on the same platform create uncertainty about versioning.

Provenance

Source

Geoscience Australia

Collection Method

Polygons were manually digitized from multibeam echosounder datasets collected on marine survey GA0308.

Time Range

August/September 2008

Freshness

Last updated metadata indicates 2026-04-30, but the underlying data is from 2008.

Geography

Carnarvon Shelf, Western Australia, Australia