Beautiful 3D map of the Great Barrier Reef

Led by geologist Robin Beaman, some of the clever folks at James Cook University in Townsville, in the northeastern Australian state of Queensland, have mapped in three dimensions and with unprecedented precision the seafloor off the Queensland coast.  In the process produced they’ve produced some spectacular imagery.

 Gorgeous isn’t it?  The map was made by melding together single beam and multi-beam sonar observations from ship-mounted equipment, with light detection and ranging (LIDAR) data, which are laser measurements taken from satellites.

Multi-beam sonar used to map the ocean floorBut it’s the scale thats really amazing here.  The path of the fly-through in that video is over 1,350 miles, or the distance from Miami to Provincetown (Cape Cod) or from the Straits of Gibraltar to the coast of Greece.  And they covered all the way from the Queensland coast to New Caledonia, encompassing an area of 6 million square kilometers, or about 2.3 million square miles.  Thats about the same area as the lower 48 states, except Texas, mapped - underwater mind you - to 100m resolution!  It was a mammoth job.  In the process they discovered some previously unknown features and, importantly, mapped the entire Great Barrier Reef, the worlds largest coral reef ecosystem.  These sorts of things will make the map an invaluable tool for folks at the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, who are charged with the management of this vast area.

You can read more about how they made their map here and a good story about the work in Australian Geographic here.

Comments

[Lauren]

That's very cool Al! Any hints to what their initial plans are in using all this valuable data?

[Al Dove]

Well it will depend on who is looking. I expect biologists will spend some time looking for new and interesting seafloor features on the map that they didn't know were there, like seamounts; then go and visit them IRL and see what's living there. These can be real hotspots of diversity that might need protection from being exploited. Oceanographers will consider how the new map will have an impact on their models of how currents move and therefore how nutrients are transported. Biologists and managers will also think about how that might affect dispersal of fish larvae within and between protected and unprotected areas, all of which is important for resource management. Its a great tool.