Imagery courtesy of the Schmidt Ocean Institute
Exploration & Discovery of Australia’s Oceans
Deepreef Explorer is the website for Dr Robin Beaman and the scientists working to reveal the underwater landscape and seabed habitats of Australia’s regional seas, from the warm tropical Great Barrier Reef and Coral Sea, to the icy polar waters of Antarctica.
Projects
Showcases the latest ocean mapping research and discoveries.
Halimeda bioherms on the Great Barrier Reef
The calcareous green alga Halimeda is a major contributor to inter-reef carbonate sediments and is found along the northern Great Barrier Reef shelf as extensive build-ups of sediment, called bioherms. Halimeda algae meadow (credit Emma Kennedy)These Halimeda bioherms...
Crowdsourced bathymetry on the Great Barrier Reef
Crowdsourced bathymetry is the collection of depth measurements from vessels using standard navigation instruments. Many vessels on the Great Barrier Reef - from dive boats to fishing boats - use some type of echo sounder to measure the depth of water. Combined with...
Submarine canyons of north-eastern Australia
Submarine canyons are among the largest undersea landscape features on Earth, and act as pathways for most of the terrigenous and carbonate sediment transported from the continents to the deep-sea. Canyons are typically associated with large submarine fans and gravity...
Rob’s Blog
Recent ocean mapping events within Australia’s marine region.
New species of black corals in the GBR
Congratulations to Jeremy Horowitz on discovering new species of black corals, including naming one coral Antipathes falkorae in recognition of the Schmidt Ocean Institute's RV Falkor. Read "Scientists discover five new species of black corals living thousands of feet...
SOI awarded Hydrographic Excellence Award for 2021
Congratulations to the Schmidt Ocean Institute for being awarded the SSSI Hydrography Commission's 2021 Hydrographic Excellence Team Award, in recognition for the 2020-21 RV Falkor Australia campaign. The Hydrographic Excellence award recognises those individuals or...
Mapping Cocos (Keeling) Islands Marine Park
The team onboard RV Investigator reveal the first detailed map of the seafloor in the idyllic Cocos (Keeling) Islands Marine Park. Read the full story “Revealing the world beneath the waves of a tropical marine park”, published by CSIRO on 28 October 2022.RV...
Bathymetry
To view and download seafloor depth data in a range of media formats.
Bass Strait bathymetry
This dataset provides the new high-resolution bathymetry model for the Bass Strait, called the bs100 grid. The ~100 metre-resolution gridded bathymetry dataset covers an area of about 334,000 km2, from King Island in the west of Bass Strait to Flinders Island in the...
Northern Australia bathymetry
This dataset provides the new high-resolution bathymetry model for the Northern Australia, called the nthaus100 grid. The ~100 metre-resolution gridded bathymetry dataset covers an area of about 1,442,000 km, from Broome in Western Australia to Arnhem Land in the...
Kerguelen Plateau bathymetry
This dataset provides the high-resolution bathymetry model for the Kerguelen Plateau and south-west Indian Ocean, called kerg_dem (short for Kergulen digital elevation model). The ~100 metre-resolution gridded bathymetry dataset covers an area of about 736,000 km2,...
Publications
For a range of published literature, including in-depth scientific articles, reports and conference papers
Peer-reviewed Literature
Conference Papers
Book Sections
Reports
Magazine Articles
Dr Robin Beaman
Marine geologist and ocean mapping scientist revealing the underwater landscape.
Technology
Learn about the variety of tools used to study the ocean floor and water.
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