Carnarvon Shelf Bathymetry and Benthic Habitats from 2008 Survey

A flythrough video presents bathymetric imagery of the Carnarvon shelf, derived from multibeam sonar data collected in 2008. The data highlights benthic habitats at Point Cloates, including a prominent ridge at 60 meters water depth and complex areas of smaller ridges and mounds that support coral and sponge communities. The survey was a collaboration between Geoscience Australia and the Australian Institute of Marine Science, funded under the Commonwealth Environment Research Facilities programme.

Use Cases

• Visualizing seafloor geomorphology based on the described ridges and mounds.
• Studying hard substrate benthic habitats based on the mentioned coral and sponge communities.
• Analyzing bathymetric features for marine spatial planning based on the 2008 multibeam sonar survey.

Strengths

• Data derived from a specific 300 kHz Simrad EM3002 multibeam sonar system.
• Survey conducted in 2008 as part of a formal research collaboration between Geoscience Australia and the Australian Institute of Marine Science.
• Key geomorphic features, such as a ridge at 60m depth, are explicitly identified.

Limitations

• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Data is presented as a video flythrough, limiting direct quantitative analysis without the underlying raw data.

Provenance

Source

Geoscience Australia and the Australian Institute of Marine Science, via the Australian Ocean Data Network.

Collection Method

Multibeam sonar survey conducted from the RV Solander.

Time Range

2008

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-16 09:15:07.001792; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Carnarvon shelf, specifically Point Cloates, Australia.