Seabed Environments of the Eastern Joseph Bonaparte Gulf, Northern Australia

A 2026 seabed mapping survey collected detailed geological and biological data across four study areas on the Van Diemen Rise in the eastern Joseph Bonaparte Gulf. The survey, conducted by Geoscience Australia and the Australian Institute of Marine Sciences, includes 1,154 square kilometres of multibeam sonar data and samples from 63 stations. It aims to establish the region's late-Quaternary evolution and investigate relationships between the physical environment and marine biota.

Use Cases

• Modeling late-Quaternary seabed evolution based on sedimentological and geophysical data.
• Investigating relationships between physical environment and benthic community structure for biodiversity prediction.
• Conducting biogeographic analysis of benthos within the Arafura-Timor Sea region.
• Assessing sediment and water quality for surrogacy research using geochemical data.
• Analyzing sediment transport patterns using oceanographic data on waves, tides, and currents.

Strengths

• Multibeam sonar provides 100% seabed coverage for each of the four study areas.
• Dataset includes 1,154 square kilometres of multibeam sonar data and 340 line-km of sub-bottom profiles.
• Data integrates geological (sedimentological, geochemical, geophysical) and biological (macro-benthic, infaunal) samples from 63 stations.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data may reflect geographic bias inherent to the specific survey area in the Joseph Bonaparte Gulf.

Provenance

Source

Australian Ocean Data Network via data_gov_au.

Collection Method

Seabed mapping survey using multibeam sonar, supplemented by geological and biological sampling at stations.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-06-17 00:27:07.328497; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Van Diemen Rise in the eastern Joseph Bonaparte Gulf, Northern Australia.