Australian Continental Shelf Seabed Exposure to Oceanographic Processes, 1997-2005

Australian continental shelf data quantifies seabed exposure to oceanographic processes. It contains an 8-year time series of combined flow bed shear stress computed from numerical models for March 1997 to February 2005. The dataset, provided by the Australian Ocean Data Network, presents three methods for classifying exposure levels based on stress magnitude and frequency.

Use Cases

• Regionalizing seabed exposure based on combined flow bed shear stress magnitude and frequency.
• Correlating oceanographic exposure with physical sediment properties like mean grain size.
• Distinguishing benthic environments dominated by high-frequency (diurnal) versus low-frequency (synoptic) events.
• Informing habitat classification schemes for marine spatial planning and policy procedures.

Strengths

• Covers the entire Australian continental shelf for a consistent 8-year period.
• Derived from a suite of numerical models predicting multiple oceanic processes.
• Provides three distinct methodological approaches for classifying exposure levels.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data freshness should be verified; last metadata update was 2026-06-04.

Provenance

Source

Australian Ocean Data Network

Collection Method

Computed from output of numerical models predicting oceanic processes.

Time Range

March 1997 to February 2005

Freshness

Last updated 2026-06-04 07:31:24.458995; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Australian continental shelf