Antarctic and subantarctic hydrographic survey datasets by the Australian Antarctic Division

Published: 2026-07-23

This is a parent metadata record. See the child records for access to the data. The Australian Antarctic Division in conjunction with the Royal Australian Navy’s (RAN) Hydrographic Service have conducted bathymetric datasets surveys in the Southern Ocean, near the coasts of the Australian Antarctic Territory and Heard Island and Macquarie Island for the purpose of seabed classification, to improve charting and navigational safety. These datasets were collected during RSV Aurora Australis and RSV Nuyina resupply transit operations, dedicated marine science voyages and targeted surveys utilising ship hull mounted, Science Tender mounted and portable echosounders. These datasets were processed to remove any noise, corrected to either Lowest Astronomical Tide (LAT) or Earth Gravitational Model 2008 (EGM2008), then exported as a 128m x 128m depth banded geotiff provide an accurate depiction of the depth of water and seabed. Generally the surveys are denoted by the voyage identifier MBES e.g. 202425020_MBES, Hydrographic Instruction (HI) e.g. HI176 or Geospatial Instruction (GI) e.g. GI14. There is a metadata record for each survey from which the survey data and metadata can be obtained. The metadata records for the individual surveys are linked to this metadata record.