Seabed Sediment Composition in Australia's Petrel Sub-Basin

A 2012 dataset provides spatially continuous raster grids of seabed gravel, mud, and sand content as weight percentages for the Petrel sub-basin within the Australian continental Exclusive Economic Zone. It was produced by the Australian Ocean Data Network, superseding previous predictions with improved accuracy. The data is presented at a 0.0025 decimal degree resolution.

Use Cases

• Modeling sediment transport by analyzing spatial patterns in the gravel, mud, and sand percentage rasters.
• Assessing habitat suitability for benthic organisms based on the predicted seabed composition fractions.
• Calibrating regional oceanographic models using the high-resolution (0.0025 dd) sediment distribution data.
• Validating remote sensing data for seabed classification against the interpolated sediment content predictions.

Strengths

• Spatially continuous predictions at a 0.0025 decimal degree resolution.
• Supersedes previous basin-scale predictions with demonstrated improvements in accuracy.

Limitations

• Accuracy varies and artifacts occur in regions with insufficient underlying sample density.
• Intended for basin-scale use and may not be appropriate for analyzing local variation in areas with low sample coverage.

Provenance

Source

Australian Ocean Data Network

Collection Method

Interpolated predictions from seabed samples, presented as raster grids.

Time Range

2012

Freshness

Original data from 2012; metadata last updated in 2026.

Geography

Petrel sub-basin, Australian continental Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).