Three submerged, living patch coral reefs covering 80 km² were discovered in the southern Gulf of Carpentaria, Australia. 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. This dataset, provided by the Australian Ocean Data Network, points to a late Quaternary phase of reef growth under different climate conditions.
Use Cases
- Modeling historical coral reef distribution based on submerged reef locations.
- Assessing potential coral refuges from thermal stress based on depth and location.
- Studying late Quaternary climate and sea-level changes based on the existence of submerged framework reefs.
Strengths
- Covers 80 km² of previously undocumented coral reef area.
- Includes precise depth measurements (28.6±0.5 m mean) for the reef surfaces.
- Data collection method is specified (multibeam sonar, sampling, video).
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 supplemented with seabed sampling and underwater video.
- Freshness
- Last updated 2026-06-16 20:39:42.332447; freshness should be verified.
- Geography
- Southern Gulf of Carpentaria, Australia