D'Urville Island Seabed Mapping
The National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research (NIWA) has mapped a 6,000 hectare area of seabed habitat northwest of D'Urville Island for Council.
This site is thought to contain high levels of biological diversity. To begin to understand this area and its importance, in 2015 NIWA took millions of sonar measurements to map and characterise seabed habitats over 100 square kilometres of these remote coastal waters.
NIWA has drawn back the aquatic veil to reveal exotic features like gravel sediment waves, tilted razor sharp bedrock ridges, deep tidal gouges canyons, and jagged reefs. The sediment waves cover tens of kilometres and are like underwater versions of the sand dunes of the Sahara.
NIWA has produced two eye catching posters to showcase this work, which can be downloaded along with their scientific report.
- Beneath the waves (Northwest D'Urville Island) poster by NIWA (PDF, 1.2MB)
- Northwest D'Urville Island seabed poster by NIWA (PDF, 176.2KB)
- View the NIWA website here for more charts and posters
There's also a scientific report available that looks at this work:
