SEMINAR: Searching in the Deep Seas of the Southwest

The biodiversity of the deep seas of the southwest of Western Australia has not been previously studied. At the end of 2005 scientists teamed up for the ‘Voyage of Discovery’ to sample the biota at depths of 100 to 1100 m from 118 stations at 19 sites between Barrow Island and Bald Island. This was a large collaborative study funded by the Commonwealth, and involved CSIRO and most of the museums in Australia. Taxonomic studies resulting from this expedition have found 2024 species from over 19,000 specimens collected. So far 431 of these species have been found to be new to science. Multibeam acoustic technology was used to map the physical features of the seabed and high resolution video and stills images visually documented the biota and habitats for the first time. Both hard and soft substrates were sampled. This talk outlines the study and results of this new research and discovery program.