From Geoscience Australia
JSON RDF ISO19115-3 XML

Composition and Distribution of Seabed and Suspended Sediments in North and Central Torres Strait, Australia

ARCHIVED

Created 13/01/2025

Updated 13/01/2025

JSON RDF ISO19115-3 XML

Widespread seagrass dieback in central Torres Strait, Australia has been anecdotally linked to the delivery of vast quantities of terrigenous sediments from New Guinea. The composition and distribution, and sedimentological and geochemical properties, of seabed and suspended sediments in north and central Torres Strait have been determined to investigate this issue. In northern Torres Strait, next to Saibai Island, seabed sediments comprise poorly sorted, muddy, mixed calcareous-siliciclastic sand. Seabed sediments in this region are dominated by aluminosilicate (terrigenous) phases. In central Torres Strait, next to Turnagain Island, seabed and suspended sediments comprise moderately sorted coarse to medium carbonate sand. Seabed sediments in this region are dominated by carbonate and magnesium (marine) phases. Mean Cu/Al ratios for seabed sediments next to Saibai Island are 0.01, and are similar to those found in New Guinea south coastal sediments by previous workers. Mean Cu/Al ratios for seabed sediments next to Turnagain Island are 0.02, indicating an enrichment of Cu in central Torres Strait. This enrichment comes from an exogenous biogenic source, principally from foraminifers and molluscs. We could not uniquely trace terrigenous sediments from New Guinea to Turnagain Island in central Torres Strait. If sediments are a factor in the widespread seagrass dieback in central Torres Strait, then our data suggest these are marine-derived sediments sourced from resuspension and advection from the immediate shelf areas and not terrigenous sediments dispersed from New Guinea rivers. This finding is consistent with outputs from recently developed regional hydrodynamic and sediment transport models.

Files and APIs

Tags

Additional Info

Field Value
Title Composition and Distribution of Seabed and Suspended Sediments in North and Central Torres Strait, Australia
Language eng
Licence notspecified
Landing Page https://devweb.dga.links.com.au/data/dataset/b5c2c707-36df-47b2-9d0c-61308df1a4a6
Contact Point
Geoscience Australia
clientservices@ga.gov.au
Reference Period 22/04/2018
Geospatial Coverage {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": [[[138.0, -12.0], [146.0, -12.0], [146.0, -8.0], [138.0, -8.0], [138.0, -12.0]]]}
Data Portal data.gov.au

Data Source

This dataset was originally found on data.gov.au "Composition and Distribution of Seabed and Suspended Sediments in North and Central Torres Strait, Australia". Please visit the source to access the original metadata of the dataset:
https://devweb.dga.links.com.au/data/dataset/composition-and-distribution-of-seabed-and-suspended-sediments-in-north-and-central-torres-stra

Original dataset
Dataset copies

No duplicate datasets found.