AM01 borehole drilled January 2002 at a height of 65 metres above sea level. Data collected in series of casts over a period of 5 days following completion of borehole. Consult Readme file for detail of data files and formats. A word document providing further information is also available as part of the download. All of the .dat files of data can be viewed with a text editor such as Wordpad.

The salinity of seawater at four sites around Casey was recorded during summer 2003/04 by a salinity probe (TPS Australia, WP-84 Conductivity Meter) attached to experimental mesocosms suspended below the sea ice. Data are salinity in parts per thousand (ppk) automatically logged every 30 minutes over the two two week long runs of the experiment. The period over which data were recorded varies between sites and is fragmentary within these periods at some sites due to power lose to the loggers caused by faulty batteries and adverse weather conditions. Mesocosms were suspended two to three metres below the bottom edge of the sea ice through a 1 metre diameter hole and were periodically raised to the surface for short periods (~1 hour). Mesocosms were deployed at Brown Bay Inner (S66 16.811 E110 32.475), Brown Bay Outer (S66 16.811 E110 32.526), McGrady Cove (S66 16.556 E110 34.392) and O'Brien Bay 1 (S66 18.730 E110 30.810). This experiment was part of the short-term biomonitoring program for the Thala Valley Tip Clean-up at Casey during summer 2003/04. These data were collected as part of ASAC project 2201 (ASAC_2201 - Natural variability and human induced change in Antarctic nearshore marine benthic communities). See also other metadata records by Glenn Johnstone for related information.

Colonisation of Lake Fletcher, a hypersaline, meromictic lake in the Vestfold Hills, Antarctica, by the calanoid copepod Drepanopus bispinosus, the cyclopoid copepod Oncea curvata and an undescribed cydippid ctenophore is discussed. In 1978, salinity direstly under the ice was 66 ppt and repeated net hauls found no zooplankton. In 1983, adults of D. bispinosus were found, and in 1984, a reproductively active population of this species. Surface water salinity in 1984 was 56 ppt. During winter 1986, surface salinity was 54 ppt and three zooplankton species (D. bispinosus, O curvata and an undescribed cydippid ctenophore) had established populations in the lake. In 1986/87, high tides caused nearby Taynaya Bay to flood into the lake, and three further species (the calanoid, Paralabidocera antarctica, and two harpacticoids, Harpacticus furcatus and Idomene sp.) were found in the lake. It appears that periodic flooding after 1978 caused a salinity decrease in the lake from 66 to 54 ppt, and this enabled some invertebrate species to maintain year-round populations, whereas others require marine incursions to re-establish summer only populations. The fields in this dataset are: Date Salinity Record Species

This dataset contains temperature and salinity data from CTD observations at Mawson, Antarctica. Profiles to 370m were attempted on an approximately monthly basis between October 1980 and October 1982. A representative value for each month of the year has been obtained during this 2 year period. The fields in this dataset are: observation_date (the date of observation, in ISO8601 format yyyy-mm-ddTHH:MM:SSZ. This information is also separated into the year, month, day, etc components) observation_date_year (the year of the observation date) observation_date_month (the month of the observation date) observation_date_day (the day of the observation date) depth (the depth at which measurements were made in m) temperature (the measured water temperature in degrees C) salinity (the measured salinity in ppt) sigma_t (kgm^-3)

AM01 borehole drilled January 2002. Data being collected at annual re-visits to site. Consult Readme file for detail of data files and formats. A word document providing further information is also available as part of the download. All of the .dat files of data can be viewed with a text editor such as Wordpad. New information added: July 2006, September 2009.

AM03 borehole drilled December 2005. Data collected in series of casts over a period of 5 days following completion of borehole. Consult Readme file for detail of data files and formats. A word document providing further information is also available as part of the download. All of the .dat files of data can be viewed with a text editor such as Wordpad.

This dataset contains hydroacoustic results from the Antarctic Division Biomass Experiment II (ADBEX II) cruise of the Nella Dan. This cruise is the third in a series of six cruises, performing a long term survey of krill and other zooplankton distribution and abundance. Australia was to have participated in the Second International Biomass Experiment I (SIBEX I), but withdrew due to resupply problems. ADBEX II is a reduced sampling program of what was to have been sampled during SIBEX I. Three transects were made off Antarctica in the Mawson region of the Australian sector, in January to March 1984, covering a survey area of 70,000 square kilometers. Quantitative and geographic krill distribution, abundance, mean and variance of the krill weight density, and total krill biomass were obtained. Biomass estimates for ADBEX II are given as 3.5 million tonnes, obtained by extrapolating over the survey area used on the SIBEX II cruise (1.28x10^6 square kilometers). Temperature, nutrient and salinty data were also obtained, as well as trawl results. Summary results are listed in the documentation. The fields in this dataset are: pressure temperature salinity volume geopotential samples deviation

The CTD data were acquired when the RMT instrument was in the water. Data Acquisition: There is a FSI CTD sensor housed in a fibreglass box that is attached to the top bar of the RMT. The RMT software running in the aft control room establishes a Telnet connection to the aft control terminal server which connects to the CTD sensor using various hardware connections. Included are the calibration data for the CTD sensor that were used for the duration of the voyage. The RMT software receives packet of CTD data and every second the most recent CTD data are written out to a data file. Additional information about the motor is also logged with the CTD data. Data are only written to the data file when the net is in the water. The net in and out of water status is determined by the conductivity value. The net is deemed to be in the water when the conductivity averaged over a 10 second period is greater than 0. When the average value is less than 0 the net is deemed to be out of the water. New data files were automatically created for each trawl. Data Processing: 1. Adjustment of the net open time. If the net did not open when first attempted then the net was 'jerked' open. This meant the winch operator adjusted the winch control so that it was at maximum speed and then turned it on for a very short time. This had the effect of dropping the net a short distance very quickly. This dislodges the net hook from its cradle and the net opens. The scientist responsible for the trawl would have noted the time in the trawl log book that the winch operator turned on the winch to jerk the net. The data files will have started the 'net open' counter 10 seconds after the user clicks the 'Net Open' button. If this time did not match the time written in the trawl log book by the scientist, then the net open time in the CSV file was adjusted. The value in the 'Net Open Time' column will increment from the time the net started to open to the time that the net started to close. The pressure was also plotted to ensure that the time written down in the log book was correct. When the net opens there is a visible change in the CTD pressure value received. The net 'flies' up as the drag in the water increases as the net opens. If the time noted was incorrect then the scientist responsible for the log book, So Kawaguchi, was notifed of the problem and the data file was not adjusted. 2. Removing unused columns from the original log files. The original log files that were produced by the RMT software were trimmed to remove any columns that did not pertain to the CTD data. These columns include the motor information and the ITI data. The ITI data gives information about the distance from the net to the ship but was not working for the duration of the BROKE-West voyage. This trimming was completed using a purpose built java application. This java class is part of the NOODLES source code. Dataset Format: The dataset is in a zip format. There is a .CSV file for each trawl, 125 in total. There were 51 Routine trawls and 74 Target Trawls. The file naming convention is as follows: [Routine/Target]NNN-rmt-2006-MM-DD.csv Where, NNN is the trawl number from 001 to 124. MM is the month, 01 or 02 DD is the day of the month. Also included in the zip file are the calibration files for each of the CTD sensors and the current documentation on the RMT software. Each CSV file contains the following columns: Date (UTC) Time (UTC) Ship Latitude (decimal degrees) Ship Longitude (decimal degrees) Conductivity (mS/cm) Temperature (Deg C) Pressure (DBar) Salinity (PSU) Sound Velocity (m/s) Fluorometer (ug/L chlA) Net Open Time (mm:ss) If the net is not open this value will be 0, else the number of minutes and seconds since the net opened will be displayed. When the user clicks the 'Net Open' button there is a delay of 10 seconds before the net starts to open. The value displayed in the 'Net Open Time' column starts incrementing once this 10 seconds delay has passed. Similarly when the user clicks the 'Net Close' button there is a delay of 6 seconds before the net starts to close. Thus the counter stops once this 6 seconds has passed. Acronyms Used: CTD: Conductivity, Temperature, Pressure RMT: Rectangular Midwater Trawl CSV: Comma seperated value FSI: Falmouth Scientific Inc ITI: Intelligent Trawl Interface This work was completed as part of ASAC projects 2655 and 2679 (ASAC_2655, ASAC_2679).