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Great Barrier Reef and Coral Sea Geomorphic Features (3DGBR, JCU, MTSRF 2.5i.1)

Posted on 16 February 2012

Project 3DGBR aimed to develop a geomorphic classification of seabed habitat types based upon a suit of standard geomorphic descriptors of topographical and geological features (e.g. Heap and Harris, 2008; IHO, 2008). This work follows on from the development of the new 100 m-resolution bathymetry grid for the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) and offshore Coral Sea using all available data sources, called gbr100. These undersea landscape maps are required by marine managers to examine how effectively the current network of zoning protects the range of seabed habitats identified from the new depth model.

This phase of the project involved manual digitising of geomorphic map boundaries for the key seafloor features identified in the gbr100 grid, particularly for the inter-reefal area on the GBR shelf and in the Coral Sea Conservation Zone (http://www.environment.gov.au/coasts/mpa/coralsea/index.html). GIS spatial analysis of the gbr100 grid was conducted in order to derive a number of useful background datasets for assisting in the digitising process, such as slope, aspect, hillshading, and dense contour lines.

The digitising initially focused on the deep-water (>100 m) environment to develop geomorphic maps for the continental slope, Queensland and Townsville Troughs lying within the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area (GBRWHA), and for the Queensland Plateau, Coral Sea Basin, Tasman Basin, and Lord Howe Rise area lying within the adjoining Coral Sea Conservation Zone (CSCZ). The project lastly focuses on the shallow-water (<100 m) environment to develop geomorphic maps for the GBR shelf to complement the shallow reef feature maps provided by GBRMPA. These shallow-water geomorphic features will be added to the project as they come available.

A 75MB zipped folder containing the actual Geomorphic Features shapefiles, image files, ArcGIS mxd map file, metadata record, PDF map files and Google Earth kmz file can be downloaded from: http://ftt.jcu.edu.au/deepreef/3dgbr/geo/3dgbr_geomorph.zip
 

click image for larger image view

Geomorphic features of the Great Barrier Reef and the Coral Sea including cays, dry reefs, undersea ridges, banks, knolls, canyons, seamounts, slopes, terraces, plateaus, valleys, troughs, rises, basins and abyssal plain

 

Figure 1.  Geomorphic features of the Great Barrier Reef and Coral Sea.

This dataset can be viewed in the e-Atlas AtlasMapper. Simply add the layers of interest from the dataset in the e-Atlas tab in the Elevation category. It will look something like this.

  • Robin J. Beaman
Custodian(s)
  • James Cook University (JCU)
Owner Institution(s)

The Great Barrier Reef and Coral Sea Geomorphic Features are provided as polygon shapefile layers within an ArcMap 9.3 mxd file, called GBRCoralSeaGeomorphicFeatures.mxd. Additional shapefiles are provided for the combined GBRWHA and CSCZ maritime zone boundaries, the GBR shelf shallow-water reef and land features, together with a background hillshade tif image of the gbr100 grid.

All geomorphic feature shapefiles were clipped within a single large polygon shapefile that combined both the GBRWHA and CSCZ areas, with a northern boundary limit at latitude 10° S, and western boundary limit at the Queensland mainland coastline. The exceptions are the GBRMPA-supplied GBR shelf shallow-water reef and land features, which extend slightly north and south of the GBRWHA and were not clipped within the large polygon. 

All files are grouped within five Group Layers to provide a hierarchy of map elements. For example, the finer-scale geomorphic features are displayed on top of the broader-scale geomorphic features. Similarly, within the Finer-scale Group Layer are geomorphic features, such as cays, which are displayed on top of reefs. All finer-scale geomorphic features were digitised at the 1:50,000 scale. All broader-scale features were digitised at the 1:100,000 scale. 

Data Units
NORTH LATITUDE: -10.0 SOUTH LATITUDE: -24.5 WEST LONGITUDE: 142.43 EAST LONGITUDE: 158.76 HORIZONTAL DATUM: WGS84
Region & Spatial Extent
STATUS: Ongoing FREQUENCY: As needed, next update 01 June 2012
Maintenance & Update Frequency
COPYRIGHT: The content on this website is released under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia Licence. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/au/deed.en ATTRIBUTION: “© www.deepreef.org” NOTE: The gbr_features.shp and gbr_dryreef.shp under the Group Layer 'GBRMPA features' are Copyright to the Commonwealth of Australia (2007). Any products using these shapefile layers should show acknowledgement in the form of “Data courtesy of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority”.
Resource Constraints

REFERENCE: Heap, A.D., Harris, P.T., 2008. Geomorphology of the Australian margin and adjacent seafloor. Australian Journal of Earth Sciences 55(4), 555-585. doi: 10.1080/08120090801888669

REFERENCE: IHO, 2008. Standardization of Undersea Feature Names: Guidelines, Proposal Form, Terminology. Bathymetric Publication No.6, 4th Edition, International Hydrographic Bureau/Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission, Monaco, pp. 32.

References
GBR_JCU_3DGBR-geomorhic
Dataset Short Name
Google Earth Data
Data
Maps
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