Biological Data from CMR Research Vessels from the Australian North West Shelf (1982-1997 "North West Shelf Study" database)

This was originally a compilation dataset containing all vessel-collected and centrally held biological data from CMR voyages forming part of the 1982-1997 "North West Shelf Study". The data were extracted from the master North West Shelf Database (as described by R. Campbell, 1984 unpublished, with additional data from 1995 and 1997) for the use of the NWS Joint Environmental Management Study, and have been subject to additional maintenance with some new information added by Xi He's group. This version of the data is a copy of the MS Access files held by Xi's group as at October 2000, with no additional quality checks. Data represented are operation, species, and length-frequency data from Soela voyages SO 5/82, SO 6/82, SO 1/83, SO 2/83, SO 3/83, SO 4/83, SO 5/83, SO 6/86, SO 7/87, SO 5/88, Pride of Eden PoE 4/89, Southern Surveyor SS 02/90, SS 04/91, SS 08/95 and SS 07/97. Biological data from other CSIRO voyages through this region but not part of this series of cruises has been extracted separately as a complementary dataset to the present one (see separate metadata record "Biological Data from CMR Research Vessels, North West Shelf, part II"). In addition to the trawl station and catch data, details of photographic stations is included along with recently compiled data from detailed analyses of the underwater photographs carried out subsequent to the original data collection. Additional information regarding individual components of this dataset is contained in separate MarLIN metadata records which exist for each voyage (e.g. "Soela Voyage SO 5/82 Biological Data Overview", etc.), and in the cruise report for each voyage. Information regarding the photographic analyses is held by Xi He's group. Access to BIODATA is now available via the Data Trawler application, please see Data link.