This dataset is a description of the shallow coastal marine fauna found in the Vestfold Hills and Rauer Island area, Antarctica. The results are from various surveys in this region over a 12 month period in 1981-82, and a full listing of species (with photographs) is given in the documentation. It includes benthic, pelagic and planktonic organisms of the coast as well as those that inhabit the ice-water interface.

Geoscience Australia and the Australian Antarctic Division conducted a benthic community survey using underwater still photographs on the shelf around the Mertz Glacier region. The purpose of the work was to collect high resolution still photographs of the seafloor across the shelf to address three main objectives: 1. to investigate benthic community composition in the area previously covered by the Mertz Glacier tongue and to the east, an area previously covered by fast ice 2. to investigate benthic community composition (or lack thereof) in areas of known iceberg scours 3. to investigate the lateral extent of cold water coral communities in canyons along the shelf break. Benthic photos were captured using a Canon EOS 20D SLR 8 megapixel stills camera fitted with a Canon EF 35mm f1.4 L USM lens in a 2500m rated flat port anodised aluminium housing. Two Canon 580EX Speedlight strobes were housed in 6000m rated stainless steel housings with hemispherical acrylic domes. The camera and strobes were powered with a 28V 2.5Ah cyclone SLA battery pack fitted in the camera housing and connected using Brantner Wetconn series underwater connectors. The results were obtained with 100 ASA and a flash compensation value of +2/3 of a stop. The focus was set manually to 7m and the image was typically exposed at f2.8 and a shutter speed of 1/60 sec. The interval between photos was set to 10 or 15 seconds. The camera was fitted to either the CTD frame or the beam trawl frame and lowered to approximately 4-5 m from the bottom. Two laser pointers, set 50 cm apart, were used for scale. The camera was deployed at 93 stations, 7 using the beam trawl frame and 86 using the CTD frame. The stations were named by: 1. Camera deployment frame (e.g. CTD or beam trawl, BT) 2. Frame sequence number (e.g. CTD53) 3. Instrument (e.g. camera = CAM) 4. Sequence of camera deployments through the survey overall (e.g. first deployment = CAM01, second deployment = CAM02 etc). For example, BT5_CAM16 is the sixteenth camera deployment of the survey overall, and was the fifth deployment using the beam trawl frame. From the 93 stations, there were 75 successful camera deployments. There were no photos captured at 9 stations. This was due to the camera or strobes malfunctioning, the camera being too far from the bottom, or the camera or strobes being in the mud at the bottom. The photos at a further 9 stations are considered poor due to the camera being out of focus, the camera being a little too far from the bottom or because very few photos were captured of the bottom. The benthic photo will be used to document the fauna and communities associated with representative habitats in the study area. The post-cruise analysis of the benthic photos will involve recording seabed geology and biology (class or order, and whatever is significant for the habitat) for each image

Zooplankton were collected with a Rectangular Midwater Trawl (RMT 8+1 net) from 37 sampling sites on and near the Southern Kerguelen Plateau. The contents of each net were preserved in 5% buffered formaldehyde. This dataset covers the counts of the contents of the RMT8 net and includes the abundances for the euphausiid Thysanoessa macrura and the salp Salpa thompsoni. The contents were identified and counted under a Leica M165C stereo-microscope. A flow meter attached to the mouth of the RMT 8 was used to record the volume of seawater passing through the net. The count for Thysanoessa macrura includes the total of all developmental stages. For the salps abundances are shown for the 2 developmental phases - solitary individuals and aggregates.

Aerial photography (35mm film) of penguin colonies was acquired over some islands north east of Brattstrand Bluff islands (Eric Woehler). The penguin colonies were traced, then digitised (John Cox), and saved as DXF-files. Using the ArcView extension 'Register and Transform' (Tom Velthuis), The DXF-files were brought into a GIS and transformed to the appropriate islands. Update May 2015 - This dataset has been rename from "Brattstrand Bluff penguin GIS dataset" to "Islands NE of Brattstrand Bluff penguin GIS dataset" to better describe the location of the colonies. The penguin colonies are on a small group of islands approximately 12km north east of Brattstrand Bluff. Latitude 69.148 south and longitude 77.268 east. The Data Centre does not have a copy of the original photographs or described GIS data. In May 2015, the Data Centre has attached the following to this record: The DXF file produced by John Cox by digitising the aerial photography. Note this document is not georeferenced. Four photographs taken in 2009 by Barbara Wienecke, Seabird Ecologist, showing penguin colonies on these islands. A shapefile exists of the digitised colonies. The digitising by Ursula Harris, Australian Antarctic Data Centre, was done by georeferencing the DXF drawing over unprocessed Quickbird Image 05NOV15042413-M1BS-052187281010_01_P002. It was done in two parts, the largest island and then the two smaller islands. This allowed for better matching. The accuracy of this data is unknown.

These notes present a summary of observations on seabirds, seals and plankton conducted from the vessel Kyo Maru No 27 during the seventh International Decade of Cetacean Research Southern Hemisphere Minke Whale Assessment cruise. The cruise was conducted under the auspices of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) to whom Paul Ensor was contracted as a consultant. The information presented here are personal observations only; recorded outside normal research hours or in such a manner that his participation in the cetacean research was not compromised.

This dataset was collected as part of an honours project by Jessica Wilks at Macquarie University (submitted May 2012). The samples analysed were taken from an expedition conducted by Dr Leanne Armand in 2011 as part of the KEOPS2 mission (KErguelen: compared study of the Ocean and the Plateau in Surface water). During this mission 7 locations (A3-1, A3-2, E1-3, E14W2, NPF-L, R2 and TEW) around the Kerguelen Plateau were sampled for seafloor sediment. This study involved identification of over 50 species of diatoms as part of a species assemblage/ distribution study. A photograph of each diatom encountered in this study is included in the attached plates.

This metadata record is a parent for all data on Antarctic blue whales collected during the 2015 New Zealand-Australia Antarctic Ecosystems Voyage. Description of specific data sets can be found in the Voyage Science Plan and within child datasets.

From the abstract of one of the papers: Three new zooplankton nets have been designed to enable improved collection of zooplankters from ice-covered waters. These nets also enable quantitative sampling of species not adequately sampled by other methods. The first net is a vertical tow net which can be folded like an umbrella to pass through a small ice hole (10 cm). This 'Umbrella Net' takes an integrated sample of zooplankton from all sample depths. The second net is a collapsible free-fall net designed to collect mobile zooplankters capable of avoiding towed nets. This was the only net used which was capable of collecting all furcilia stages of Euphausia crystallorophias from Ellis Fjord, Vestfold Hills, Antarctica. The third net is a diver-operated push net designed to collect zooplankters in the top 15 cm of the under-ice column. Because of the high standing crop of pytoplankton at and near the under-ice surface at particular times of the year, some species of zooplankton tend to congregate there. These species, particularly Paralabidocera antarctica, were collected in great abundance using the push net, but were rare in samples collected by other methods. The fields in this dataset are: species species density site sample