Satellite Relay Tagging Program - Southern Ocean - MEOP Quality Controlled CTD Profiles

CTD (Conductivity-Temperature_Depth)-Satellite Relay Data Loggers (CTD-SRDLs) are used to explore how marine animal behaviour relates to their oceanic environment. Loggers developed at the University of St Andrews Sea Mammal Research Unit transmit data in near real-time via the Argo satellite system. Data represented here was collected in the Southern Ocean, from elephant, fur and Weddell Seals. In 2024 data was added from flatback and olive ridley turtles, from a pilot study co-funded by the Royal Australian Navy in collaboration with the Australian Institute of Marine Science and Indigenous Ranger groups.Data parameters measured by the instruments include time, conductivity (salinity), temperature, pressure and depth. The data represented by this record have been Qc'd and are the Australian subset of the MEOP-CTD database (MEOP: Marine Mammals Exploring the Oceans Pole to Pole), complemented with the most recent Southern Ocean deployment data. This Australian subset of the Southern Ocean database represents about one quarter of the entire MEOP-CTD database, which currently is about 52,000 profiles obtained from 275 CTD-SRDL tag deployments. The Australian dataset originated in 2004, and was initially collected by Mark Hindell's team based at the University of Tasmania, and in later years his data has formed part of the Animal Tracking Facility of Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS).