Rob’s Blog

Recent ocean mapping events within Australia’s marine region.

Fly-through of Williams Ridge

Fly-through of Williams Ridge

A fly-through of new bathymetry (depth) models for the Kerguelen Plateau and Williams Ridge. Includes the sub-Antarctic Heard Island and McDonald Island - Australia's only active volcanoes. Most of source data for these models were crowdsourced bathymetry data...

Benthic communities on One Tree shelf edge

Benthic communities on One Tree shelf edge

Our paper has been published 'Benthic communities of the lower mesophotic zone on One Tree shelf edge, southern Great Barrier Reef, Australia' with the journal Marine and Freshwater Research Very proud of Raven Wright and co-authors for the multibeam mapping and...

Recently discovered drowned reefs on the Queensland Plateau

Recently discovered drowned reefs on the Queensland Plateau

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...

Online NMEA converter for CSB data

Online NMEA converter for CSB data

With the increasing interest in crowdsourced bathymetry, and the number of data loggers able to store raw NMEA-0183 strings from a vessel’s GPS and depth sounder, is a need to convert raw data into easier-to-use, generic tables of latitude, longitude, date, time,...

New species of black corals in the GBR

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

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

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...

Regional Wrap interview ‘Exploring the deep GBR’

Regional Wrap interview ‘Exploring the deep GBR’

Dr Robin Beaman had an interview with Bill Bates from Australia's 'Regional Wrap' on "Exploring the deep Great Barrier Reef". Is about 1 hour long, so maybe a bit long for some folks. However, discussion tried to do justice to the remarkable series of Schmidt Ocean...

RV Investigator maps northern Great Barrier Reef

RV Investigator maps northern Great Barrier Reef

A transit voyage by CSIRO research vessel (RV) Investigator to reposition the vessel from Cairns to Darwin (IN2022_T01), was an opportunity to continue multibeam mapping along the far northern Great Barrier Reef continental margin. Dr Robin Beaman from James Cook...