East Gippsland Marine Park State of Knowledge

© courtesy Geoscience Australia
Overview Map

East Gippsland Marine Park contains deep water habitats featuring large box canyons, ridges, margin slumps, and plateaus bordered by steep escarpments. It covers representative areas of the south-east transition bioregion.

East Gippsland Overview 3 D 1

Knowledge status

East Gippsland Marine Park has a medium level of knowledge.

  • The significant geomorphology provides habitat for a diverse array of mobile and sessile (immobile) fauna and are the focus of research efforts aiming to characterise the unique structure of these valuable high biodiversity habitats.
  • There has been 1 sediment sample collected from 1 survey.
  • There is 1 Publication that references the South east network and relates to East Gippsland Marine Park.
  • Depth: 604m – 5726m.
  • 100% of seafloor mapped, almost all at medium to high resolution to support habitat mapping and biodiversity surveys.

Key values, habitats and communities

East Gippsland Overview 3 D 2

A prominent feature of the park is a large box canyon that borders the southern edge of a significant plateau feature. The canyon is distinguished by a steep incline at the head before cutting in at the lower slope and then progressing to the abyssal plain1.

Twin Sailed Salp Credit Mike Stukel T

Feature of interest

Mid bathyal seafloor habitats support a diverse array of mobile and sessile fauna. Twin sailed Salps (Thetys vagina) contribute valuable biomass to the seafloor2.

Key gaps

  • Understanding impacts of emerging pressures on park values.

Key activities

  • Commercial fishing
  • Shipping

Key Pressures

  • Resource extraction
  • Climate change
  • Underwater noise

Seafloor mapping and survey deployments

Interactive Map and Report

Further information

State of Knowledge published Mar 2023 | References:

  1. O’Hara, Tim. (2019). The Eastern Australian Marine Parks: Biodiversity, assemblage structure, diversity and origin.
  2. Henschke, et al. (2013). Salp-falls in the Tasman Sea: A major food input to deep-sea benthos.

Key Natural Values (KNV) = Habitat or species that are particularly important to management.

Printable version: AMP - SE SOK Placemat templates (parksaustralia.gov.au)