Carnarvon Shelf Reef Polygons Digitized from 2008 Multibeam Survey

Carnarvon Shelf reef polygons were manually digitized from multibeam echosounder datasets collected on marine survey GA0308 in August/September 2008. Features were 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 bathymetric derivatives like slope and contours.
• Integrating reef data with other marine spatial layers for conservation planning.
• Validating automated seafloor classification algorithms against manually digitized features.

Strengths

• Features were manually digitized at a detailed scale of 1:10,000.
• Derived from multibeam echosounder data, suggesting high-resolution source information.
• Includes multiple data layers: bathymetry, backscatter, slope, hillshading, and contours.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Data is from a single survey in 2008; temporal coverage is limited.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

Geoscience Australia, via the Australian Ocean Data Network.

Collection Method

Manual digitization from multibeam echosounder data collected on survey GA0308.

Time Range

August/September 2008.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-10 16:50:24.895230; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Carnarvon Shelf, Australia.