TAS:Scientists river test Barrier Reef explorer camera

AAP General News (Australia)
04-26-2004
TAS:Scientists river test Barrier Reef explorer camera

By Libby Sutherland

HOBART, April 26 AAP - An underwater camera system designed to explore the Great Barrier
Reef was river-tested today by Tasmanian scientists.

Designed and built by CSIRO staff, the $500,000 rig was dunked in Hobart's chilly Derwent
River ahead of its delivery to the warmer climes of Townsville, north Queensland, within
days.

Its first mission is aboard the Australian Institute of Marine Science research vessel
Lady Basten, which is mapping sea floor habitats at 1,500 sites across the Great Barrier
Reef Marine Park.

CSIRO marine researcher Dr Alan Butler said the camera would be used alongside other
devices - including nets to collect live samples and baited video cameras to attract fish
for filming - to provide scientists with a big picture of the underwater world in an ongoing
seabed biodiversity project.

"The information from all of these methods gets put together on a computer database,
giving the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority a baseline from which to understand
and manage the park," Dr Butler said.

The camera system, which can also measure water temperature, salinity and turbidity,
is rated to depths of 1,000m but will concentrate on areas between the reef some 100m
below the surface.

"People know a lot about the coral reefs, but in between the coral reefs in the channels
and deeper areas there's a lot of biodiversity that we know very little about," Dr Butler
said.

"The drop-camera will be towed behind the vessel, continuously recording the seabed
from stereo video cameras, and taking digital still pictures at a rate of one every five
seconds.

Images will be fed back to onboard computers via a fibre optic cable, allowing them
to be catalogued according to their geographical location.

Dr Butler said the system was the latest in a line of underwater cameras which were
becoming more and more sophisticated.

"We will be using this rig in the Torres Strait as well as the Barrier Reef for the
same sort of survey," he said.

"They are marvellous for initially surveying an area and finding out what is there,
but you can also use them to go back and monitor areas to see whether the environment
is changing."

AAP las/cat/br

KEYWORD: REEF

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