GEOMAT: Continental Shelf Sediment Mobility Models for Australian Marine Planning

GEOMAT is a geological-oceanographic computer modelling project from a collaboration including Geoscience Australia, the University of Tasmania, and the Australian Bureau of Meteorology. The models predict that swell wave energy could mobilize fine sand over 63.5% of the Australian continental shelf during a one-year period from March 1997 to February 1998. This work provides a process-based understanding of the shelf sedimentary system to support marine environmental management and regional planning.

Use Cases

• Mapping biological habitats and communities based on predicted sediment mobility regions.
• Supporting marine engineering projects where shelf sediment mobilization is a concern.
• Conducting regional studies of pollution dispersal and accumulation based on sediment transport models.
• Informing the National Ocean's Office regional marine planning process with process-based shelf system understanding.

Strengths

• Models predict specific, quantified outcomes, such as fine sand mobilization over 63.5% of the shelf.
• Work was conducted by a multi-institutional team over two years, suggesting a collaborative and reviewed effort.
• The description defines six distinct shelf regions of relative wave and tidal energy, providing a structured analytical framework.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Data freshness should be verified; the underlying model period is from 1997-1998.
• The primary file formats are PDF and HTML, which may require extraction or conversion for computational analysis.

Provenance

Source

Geoscience Australia Data

Collection Method

Geological-oceanographic computer modelling combining tidal and surface ocean swell-wave models.

Time Range

Model period focused on March 1997 to February 1998.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-20 02:21:23.309054; freshness should be verified

Geography

Australian continental shelf, with specific mention of the Great Australian Bight.