Lord Howe Island Shelf Bathymetry and Habitat Flythrough

Flythrough video visualizes the bathymetry and seabed habitats of the Lord Howe Island continental shelf. The bathymetric image merges multibeam sonar data from 2008, legacy sonar, and satellite-derived bathymetry into grids with 8 m and 40 m resolution. The Australian Ocean Data Network published this resource as part of the Marine Biodiversity Research Hub.

Use Cases

• Analyze the spatial extent and structure of the drowned reef encircling Lord Howe Island from the bathymetric visualization.
• Identify sediment-covered basins and other key geomorphic features on the shelf from the flythrough video.
• Correlate seabed habitat types, such as reef and sediment zones, with specific bathymetric features shown in the video.
• Use the 8 m and 40 m resolution bathymetric grids to understand the topographic complexity of the shelf.

Strengths

• Bathymetry derived from merged high-resolution grids at 8 m and 40 m.
• Incorporates multibeam sonar data collected in 2008 with a specific 30 kHz Simrad EM300 system.

Limitations

• Primary data is a visualization video, not the raw sonar or grid datasets.
• Temporal coverage is focused on a single 2008 survey with legacy data of unspecified age.
• Sample size and specific row/column counts for underlying data are unknown.

Provenance

Source

Australian Ocean Data Network, part of the Commonwealth Environment Research Facilities (CERF) programme.

Collection Method

Multibeam sonar collected in 2008 on RV Southern Surveyor, merged with legacy sonar and satellite-derived bathymetry.

Time Range

Primary survey in 2008, includes legacy data.

Freshness

Record updated in April 2026, but underlying survey data is from 2008.

Geography

Shelf surrounding Lord Howe Island, New South Wales, Australia.