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 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 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...

Undersea, or submarine, landslides are common features on steep continental margins and the sides of oceanic islands around the world. Submarine slope failure is a natural hazard process that dramatically shapes the seafloor environment and transfers large quantities...

The ocean floor is the Earth’s last great frontier, full of great mountain ranges and deep chasms that are largely unexplored. Just 150-600 km east of the Australian mainland is a 2000 km long chain of submerged volcanoes that rise over 4000 m above the seafloor -...

There is a critical lack of information about the location and extent of deep-water ecosystems and seabed habitats for about a third of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area that lies deeper than 200 m. In addition much of the inter-reef (between reefs) seabed...

A major limitation for studying the Great Barrier Reef, over 2000 km long, is the lack of digital bathymetry data over all of the reefs. The Royal Australian Navy have previously surveyed large parts of the GBR and Coral Sea with airborne lidar bathymetry for...

Coldwater corals occur globally in the deep ocean and are a diverse group of stony corals, soft corals, black corals and lace corals. These corals differ from tropical shallow-water corals because they lack symbiotic algae and typically exist in deeper waters below...

Osprey Reef lies on the northern Queensland Plateau, which is a huge submerged carbonate platform that was once part of mainland Australia, then separated and subsided during the break-up of Gondwana millions of years ago. Scattered over the Queensland Plateau are...