Offshore Sydney Basin Marine Sediment Geochemistry and Sedimentology Survey, 1992

A 28-day multi-institutional survey aboard the BMR vessel Rig Seismic collected baseline environmental data on the NSW continental margin in 1992. The project involved personnel from the Sydney Water Board, Sydney University, and the Geological Survey of New South Wales. Its primary objectives included mapping sediment composition, assessing anthropogenic contaminants, and studying non-renewable resources like hydrocarbons and marine sands.

Use Cases

• Establishing environmental baselines for coastal monitoring based on sediment chemical composition data.
• Assessing anthropogenic contamination impacts based on the study of contaminants in continental shelf sediments.
• Evaluating non-renewable resource potential based on data related to hydrocarbons, seafloor minerals, and marine aggregates.
• Reconstructing Quaternary climate change based on the record preserved in continental slope sediments.

Strengths

• Data collection involved a 28-day dedicated survey with a multi-disciplinary team from several institutions.
• The description outlines six specific project themes, suggesting a structured and multi-faceted research design.

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

Australian Ocean Data Network

Collection Method

Marine survey conducted aboard the BMR research vessel Rig Seismic.

Time Range

September-October 1992

Freshness

Last updated 2026-06-16 21:36:26.269237; freshness should be verified.

Geography

NSW continental margin between Wollongong, Sydney, and Newcastle, Australia.