The Coral Sea Marine Park is one of the world’s largest marine parks, and lies off the coast of Queensland. The marine park has a diverse array of habitats, such as coral reefs, sandy cays, deep sea plains and canyons, as well over 15,000 square kilometres of reef which supports distinct communities of marine flora and fauna. The marine park includes iconic black marlin spawning aggregations near Osprey Reef, and every year humpback whales migrate through the marine park from Antarctica. Six of the world’s seven species of marine turtles can be found in the Coral Sea. It’s a popular place for fishing, snorkelling, diving and boating. The park also supports commercial fishing and shipping, which contribute to economic growth, employment and social wellbeing in Queensland coastal towns and communities.

The park is located to the east of the Great Barrier Reef, extending from Cape York Peninsula to about 40 kilometres north of Bundaberg in Queensland. It covers 989,863 square kilometres and is managed using National Park, Habitat Protection and Special Purpose zones. – Parks Australia

Coral Sea ranges from 0 to 6,000 metres depth, with an average depth of 2,188 metres. The majority of the Park (46%) falls within the lower-slope zone (2,000-4,000 metres) [view on map]. The mapped areas of the seafloor are dominated by Plane (78%) and Slope (7%) morphological features. Seamounts/Guyots and Pinnacles have been mapped in this park [view on map].

Based on annotations from publicly available seafloor imagery (Squidle+), the five most dominant seafloor categories in this Park are:

• Shallow: macroalgae (64%), coral biota (23%), sand (6%), unconsolidated hard substrata (3%), sponges (2%)
• Mesophotic: sand (43%), coral biota (23%), macroalgae (18%), mixed coarse sediments (12%), unconsolidated hard substrata (2%)
• Rariphotic: macroalgae (54%), mixed coarse sediments (18%), coral biota (14%), unidentified biota (7%), sand (4%)
• Upper-slope: no public annotations available
• Mid-slope: no public annotations available
• Lower-slope: no public imagery available
• Abyss: no public imagery available