MARS Database: Australian Seafloor Sediment Samples and Maps

25,000 seafloor sediment samples with 138,000 recorded properties were collated for the Australian Marine Jurisdiction. The National Oceans Office and Geoscience Australia collaborated on this project to create the MARS database and produce maps of sediment properties like grain size and carbonate content. The work identified that about 70% of the marine domain remains unmapped by measured sediment data.

Use Cases

• Map seafloor sediment distribution based on measured grain size data (gravel, sand, mud).
• Model sediment mobility in shallow waters based on mean grain size data for marine domains.
• Classify sediment types for bioregionalisation using the Folk classification scheme.
• Identify gaps in seafloor data coverage to guide future sampling efforts.

Strengths

• Contains approximately 25,000 samples with 138,000 recorded properties.
• Includes validated quantitative data used to produce geospatial maps for two regions.
• Represents the first national-scale critical assessment of Australia's seafloor sediment data quality and coverage.

Limitations

• Significant data gaps exist, with about 70% of the total marine domain unmapped by measured sediment data.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count for the final database is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

Geoscience Australia Data

Collection Method

Identification and collation of existing marine sediment data from various sources.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-25 17:21:47.531196; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Australian Marine Jurisdiction, with specific focus on the Northern Planning Area.