Hydrographic Survey of Zeehan and Franklin Marine Parks, West Coast Tasmania

The CSIRO’s National Collections & Marine Infrastructure (NCMI) Shallow Survey Facility (SSF) was contracted by Neville Barrett from the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS), to conduct a multibeam survey of the Zeehan and Franklin Marine Parks for Parks Australia.

The survey areas are located west of King Island (Zeehan Marine Park) and west of Cape Grim (Franklin Marine Park). The Zeehan Marine Park encompasses 932.98 km2 (continental shelf) and Franklin Marine Park 670.77 km2.

The vessel MV Bluefin was mobilised over two separate days. On Thursday 24th February the equipment was transported from CSIRO Hobart and topside equipment (PC and PosMV) was installed. On Friday 25th February divers installed the subsea multibeam transducer onto the hull and all equipment was tested. The MV Bluefin departed Beauty Point on the 28th February at 13:10 local time.

The MV Bluefin returned to Beauty Point at 13:00 on Monday 21st March (21 days at sea), the vessel was demobilised on Tuesday 22nd March and all equipment returned to CSIRO Hobart. The objective of the survey was to measure seabed depths and map the seafloor topography within the marine park boundaries to a 2m resolution using a high-resolution bathymetry system. The soundings and map products have been reduced to the Mean Sea Level (EGM2008) and the horizontal datum and projection of the data is WGS84 and UTM Zone 54S and 55S for Zeehan and Franklin Marine Parks, respectively.

The total area surveyed was 1026.2 km2 comprising Zeehan Marine Park, 726 km2 and Franklin Marine Park, 300.2 km2. A total distance of ~3000 nautical miles were sailed.