Was a privilege to attend the AMSA2023 conference at the Gold Coast this week, and present my talk “Recently discovered drowned reefs on the Queensland Plateau, Coral Sea Marine Park, Australia”
Through multibeam surveys by the Schmidt Ocean Institute’s RV Falkor, and the CSIRO RV Investigator, around the steeper flanks of the 30 shallow reefs on the plateau, 20 drowned reefs were discovered.
Their heights range from ~100-600 m above the surrounding seafloor. Three of the drowned reefs have vertical heights over 500 m tall.
Talk shows 3D point cloud examples of the drowned reefs, and potential habitat depth trends.
3D point cloud of >500 m tall drowned reef
