Project 121.37: Offshore Sydney Basin Sediment Geochemistry and Sedimentology Survey, 1992

A 28-day survey conducted in September-October 1992 aboard the BMR research vessel Rig Seismic on the NSW continental margin between Wollongong, Sydney, and Newcastle. The multi-institutional project collected baseline environmental data on sediment composition, anthropogenic contaminants, and non-renewable resources. It involved personnel from the Sydney Water Board, Sydney University, the Geological Survey of New South Wales, and the Bureau of Mineral Resources.

Use Cases

• Establishing environmental baselines for coastal monitoring based on sediment chemical composition data.
• Assessing anthropogenic contamination in shelf sediments based on the described contaminant studies.
• Studying Quaternary climate change records based on sediment cores from the continental slope.
• Characterizing non-renewable resource potential based on data from Permo-Mesozoic Sydney Basin rocks.

Strengths

• Data collection involved a 28-day dedicated marine survey with a multi-disciplinary team from several institutions.
• The project had defined primary objectives covering environmental baselines, resource assessment, and waste discharge impacts.
• Survey design included multiple specific sub-projects targeting Quaternary sedimentation, geochemistry, and facies changes.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data is from a single survey in 1992; temporal coverage is limited.

Provenance

Source

Geoscience Australia Data

Collection Method

Marine survey aboard the BMR research vessel Rig Seismic, involving sediment sampling and geochemical analysis.

Time Range

September-October 1992

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-30 13:22:20.204332; freshness should be verified.

Geography

NSW continental margin, offshore Sydney Basin between Wollongong, Sydney, and Newcastle, Australia