Shelf Rocky Reefs KEF in the vicinity of the Solitary Islands Survey - Underwater video, still images and positional information

Brief description

Geoscience Australia completed an underwater towed video survey (GA survey 0338) of the Shelf Rocky Reefs Key Ecological Feature (KEF) in the vicinity of the Solitary Islands in collaboration with the New South Wales Office of Environment and Heritage on the R.V. Bombora between 7 - 16 August 2012. The aim of the survey was to characterize benthic habitat in areas of the KEF, and to compare and contrast the effectiveness of different methods for capturing visual representations of biological communities. The survey collected forward-facing mono video, forward-facing stereo video, and downward facing stills along 12 transects, each of 2 km length. The geographic position of the vessel was determined using a GPS system, and the location of the towed camera body was recorded using a USBL system. The KEF survey was part of the National Marine Biodiversity Hub's National Monitoring Evaluation and Reporting Theme. The aim of this theme is to develop a blueprint for the sustained monitoring of the Commonwealth Marine Reserve Network, specifically; 1) to contribute to an inventory of demersal and epibenthic conservation values in the KEF and; 2) to test methodologies and deployment strategies in order to inform future survey design efforts. Embargo statement: Resource embargoed pending completion of NERP research. Release date 31 December 2014 Attribution statement: Users of NERP Marine Biodiversity Hub data are required to clearly acknowledge the source of the material in the format: "Data was sourced from the NERP Marine Biodiversity Hub" the Marine Biodiversity Hub is supported through funding from the Australian Government's National Environmental Research Program (NERP), administered by the Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities (DSEWPaC)." Dataset name: National Environmental Research Program (NERP) Marine Biodiversity Hub, 2012, Flinders Commonwealth Marine Reserve Shelf Backscatter

Lineage

Maintenance and Update Frequency: notPlanned

Statement: Video and digital stills images were collected using Geoscience Australia's towed camera system, deployed from the R/V Bombora. Technical details as follows: Stereo video: 2x GoPro Hero 2 cameras in Patima housings with 30 cm spacing. Mono video: Stills: Nikon D700, Easydive Leo II housing with dome port The data is organized by survey date, followed by full transect number. Within each transect, there are 4 folders titled: GoPro Stereo GoPro .MP4 files, 1080i, medium FOV, NTSC 30 fps Nikon Downward Facing Stills, .JPG Streampix Mono video files in Norpix .SEQ format Tracklink USBL positional information from Tracklink Navigator 1500.7.4.0 Days 4 and 5 are together in one folder because these transects were incomplete, and are not suitable for scientific analysis. The Tracklink folder for Day 4 and 5 also contains the history files for the USBL positional information (i.e. the information for previous days).