Submerged Coral Reefs in Australia's Gulf of Carpentaria

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.

Use Cases

• Analyze the 80 km² coverage of the three patch reefs to model submerged reef distribution in the Gulf.
• Use the mean water depth of 28.6±0.5 meters to study coral survival thresholds in cooler, deeper environments.
• Correlate the reef discovery with bathymetry data to identify potential widespread occurrences of submerged reefs.
• Study the reef framework as a historical record of late Quaternary growth under cooler climate and lower sea level conditions.

Strengths

• Documents a specific discovery of three previously unknown submerged coral reefs.
• Provides precise spatial coverage of 80 km² and a mean depth measurement of 28.6±0.5 meters.
• Data sourced from a scientific survey using multibeam swath sonar, seabed sampling, and underwater video.

Limitations

• Dataset scope is limited to the description of three specific reefs, not a systematic survey of the entire region.
• No structured tabular data (rows, columns) or sample data is available for quantitative analysis.
• Information is presented in an HTML report format, not in a machine-readable data structure.

Provenance

Source

Geoscience Australia Data

Collection Method

Multibeam swath sonar survey supplemented with seabed sampling and underwater video.

Time Range

Late Quaternary period (historical) and modern discovery.

Freshness

null

Geography

Southern Gulf of Carpentaria, Australia (AU-NT, AU-QLD).