Report
Cartier Island Marine Park is located about 45 kilometres south-east of Ashmore Reef, surrounding an unvegetated, uninhabited sandy cay and reef island. The park includes a small submerged pinnacle (Wave Governor Bank) and two shallow pools in the northeast. Much like Ashmore Reef Marine Park, this biodiversity hotspot attracts huge schools of pelagic fish, whales, dolphins, turtles and dugongs, as well as an unusually high diversity of seasnakes.
Cartier Island Marine Park lies in the Timor Sea within the Australian external territory of Ashmore and Cartier Islands, about 600 kilometres north of Broome. The park covers 172 square kilometres and is a Sanctuary Zone, providing the highest level of protection for marine life. – Parks Australia
Cartier Island ranges from the high tide mark to 329 metres depth, with an average depth of 214 metres. The majority of the park (71%) falls within the upper-slope zone (200-700 metres) [view on map].
Based on annotations from publicly available seafloor imagery (Squidle+), the five most dominant seafloor categories in this Park are:
- Shallow: coral biota (51%), macroalgae (35%), sand (5%), unconsolidated hard substrata (3%), non-coral cnidaria (3%)
- Mesophotic to Upper-slope: no public imagery available
What's known about the Cartier Island marine park?
Habitat and bathymetry summaries last refreshed August 2024. Habitat observations are refreshed weekly from data providers.
Habitat
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Bathymetry
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Habitat Observations
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0 imagery deployments
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0 video deployments
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0 sediment samples
(0 analysed) from 0 surveys
