The Gulf of Carpentaria, Australia, contains three newly discovered submerged patch coral reefs covering 80 km². The reefs were identified using multibeam swath sonar, seabed sampling, and underwater video, with their upper surfaces at a mean depth of 28.6±0.5 meters. Their existence suggests a past phase of reef growth under different climatic conditions and may offer a refuge from coral bleaching.
Use Cases
- Mapping submerged reef habitats based on multibeam sonar bathymetry data.
- Studying coral reef refugia from climate change based on depth and location data.
- Modeling historical sea-level and climate conditions based on reef formation evidence.
- Planning marine conservation areas based on the discovery of previously unknown ecosystems.
Strengths
- Covers 80 km² of newly discovered coral reef area.
- Includes precise mean depth measurements of 28.6±0.5 meters.
- Discovery method (multibeam sonar, sampling, video) is explicitly documented.
Limitations
- Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
- Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
Provenance
- Source
- Australian Ocean Data Network
- Collection Method
- Multibeam swath sonar surveys supplemented with seabed sampling and underwater video.
- Freshness
- Last updated 2026-04-16 08:16:53.572683; freshness should be verified.
- Geography
- Southern Gulf of Carpentaria, Australia