GEOMAT: Australian Continental Shelf Sediment Mobility Models

A two-year geological-oceanographic modeling project from March 1997 to February 1998, conducted by collaborators from AGSO, the University of Tasmania, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, and a Danish geodetic division. It models tidal currents and swell waves to predict sediment mobilization across the Australian continental shelf. The work aims to support marine environmental management and regional planning processes.

Use Cases

• Predicting sediment mobilization patterns based on modeled wave and tidal energy thresholds.
• Mapping biological habitats and communities based on inferred sediment distribution patterns.
• Supporting marine engineering projects where shelf sediment stability is a factor.
• Informing regional studies of pollution dispersal and accumulation based on sediment transport models.

Strengths

• Model outputs provide specific quantitative predictions, such as swell waves mobilizing fine sand over 63.5% of the shelf.
• Defines six distinct shelf regions based on the relative dominance of wave and tidal energy.
• Project involved collaboration between multiple scientific institutions, including AGSO and the University of Tasmania.

Limitations

• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.

Provenance

Source

Geoscience Australia Data

Collection Method

Computer modeling of tidal currents and surface ocean swell-waves.

Time Range

March 1997 to February 1998

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-25 15:35:27.461956; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Australian continental shelf