GEOMAT: Australian Continental Shelf Sediment Mobility Models

Australian continental shelf sediment mobility is modelled using tidal and swell-wave energy. The project predicts that swell waves mobilized fine sand over 63.5% of the shelf during a one-year period, while tidal currents affected about 56.4%. This work was conducted by a team from AGSO, the University of Tasmania, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, and a Danish geodetic agency.

Use Cases

• Map biological habitats based on predicted sediment mobility regions.
• Support marine engineering projects where shelf sediment mobilisation is a concern.
• Model pollution dispersal and accumulation patterns on the continental shelf.
• Regional marine planning for environmental management based on process-based shelf understanding.

Strengths

• Models predict sediment mobility over specific, quantified areas (63.5% for waves, 56.4% for tides).
• Defines six distinct shelf regions based on relative wave and tidal energy.
• Work is based on a two-year collaborative project involving multiple scientific institutions.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data freshness should be verified; last metadata update is 2026-06-17.

Provenance

Source

Australian Ocean Data Network

Collection Method

Geological-oceanographic computer modelling of tidal and swell-wave processes.

Time Range

Models reference the period March 1997 to February 1998.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-06-17 00:54:30.847230

Geography

Australian continental shelf