Total Suspended Solids, dust, mud carbonate & mud mineral (GBR4 BGC v4.2 baseline)

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    Data gap notice

    Some dates in the 4km eReefs BioGeoChemical model v4.2 dataset have been removed because the model output for those dates was found to be inaccurate, as shown in this sample video.

    The following date ranges have been removed:

    Start date End date
    2 Jan 2011 31 Jan 2011
    2 Feb 2012 2 Mar 2012
    9 Mar 2013 7 Apr 2013
    1 Mar 2014 30 Mar 2014
    6 Apr 2015 5 May 2015
    10 May 2016 8 Jun 2016
    14 Jun 2017 13 Jul 2017
    19 Jul 2018 17 Aug 2018
    23 Aug 2019 21 Sep 2019
    26 Sep 2020 25 Oct 2020
    31 Oct 2021 29 Nov 2021
    19 May 2022 17 Jun 2022

    Please use caution when interpreting the videos in the player above.

    Although the obviously inaccurate dates have been removed, the model may take some time to recover after each disruption. As a result, data in the days and weeks following the removed periods may also be affected. The 30-day buffer used here is a visual estimate and not scientifically validated, so some remaining inaccuracies may still be present in the dataset.

    We will update this portal when corrected model output becomes available.

    The sediment is modelled in multiple layers with a thin layer of easily resuspendable material overlying thicker layers of more consolidated sediment. The sediment model contains inorganic particles of different size (Dust, Mud, Sand and Gravel) and different mineralogies (carbonate and non-carbonate). The critical shear stress for resuspension, and the sinking rates, are generally larger for large particles, while the mineralogy only affects the optical properties. The size-class Dust comes only in a non-carbonate mineralogy, and the Mud-carbonate class contains a category of FineSed-mineral that has the same physical and optical properties as Mud-mineral, except that it is initialised with a zero value and only enters the domain from rivers.

    Total Suspended Solids

    This is the sum of the suspended sediments in the water column. It is [Fine sediment] + [Mud] + [Mud carbonate] + [Mud mineral] + [Dust]. Suspended sediment is often measured in mg / L. To convert between the model units (kg / m3) and typical units (mg / L), multiply the values by 1000, so 0.005 kg / m3 = 5 mg / L.

    Dust

    Very fine terrestrial sediment (nominal size 1 µm) released from the catchments via the rivers. It has a sinking velocity of 1 m d-1. This fine particle size is intended to model fine particles that are distributed in flood plumes.

    Mud carbonate

    Small sized (nominal size 30 µm), re-suspending particles with a sinking velocity of 17 m d-1. This sediment is white in colour.

    Mud mineral

    Small sized (nominal size 30 µm), re-suspending particles with a sinking velocity of 17 m d-1. This sediment is brown in colour.

    Source data

    The videos/images on this page are based on the 4km eReefs BioGeoChemical model (v4.2) run with SOURCE Catchments using Baseline catchment conditions. The model builds on the CSIRO Environmental Modelling Suite (EMS), described in the paper: Scientific description of the optical and biogeochemical models (vB3p0). The dataset metadata is available from the NCI GeoNetwork: eReefs GBR4 Biogeochemistry and Sediments v4.2 baseline catchment scenario. The raw model data is available from the NCI THREDDS server (daily, in curvilinear NetCDF format).

    Data span

    These results are based on a fixed time period (Dec 2010 - Apr 2019) hind-cast analysis developed for comparing changes in land practices. The river runoff used to drive the BGC model was provided by the SOURCE Catchments modelling.