Offshore sediment samples of coastal compartments of western Victoria, Australia

This dataset is composed of 138 surficial sediment samples collected within six coastal compartments of western Victoria, Australia. Unconsolidated substrate areas of the shoreface and inner continental shelf were targeted. 15 samples were collected in the compartment of Discovery Bay (DB), 17 in Portland (PL), 27 in Port Fairy (PF), 31 in Port Campbell (PC), 37 in Great Ocean Road (GR) and 11 in Torquay (TQ), between October 2018 and November 2020. Most samples were collected with a Shipek grab (n = 118) and only 20 samples (PF01-PF20) were collected with a Van Veen. The shallowest samples (PF11 and PF11) were retrieved from 4 m depth whereas the deepest sample (PC01) was collected from depths of 55 m. Grain size and loss on ignition (carbonate and organic matter) analyses were conducted in the laboratory following salt extraction and oven dry at 60 ºC. Approximately 200 g of sample was dry sieved down to 0 phi at half phi intervals to determine size fractions. Size of material finer than 0 phi was obtained by laser scanning using a Beckman Coulter laser diffraction particle size analyser. Grain size statistics have been calculated using Folk and Ward (1957) formulae. Individual sample results were obtained by running the grain size distribution and statistic software GRADISTAT (Blott and Pye, 2001). Approximately 4 g of sediment per sample were used for determining carbonate and organic matter content via loss on ignition (Dean, 1974; Heiri et al., 2001). For that, crushed samples were placed in ceramic crucibles and exposed for 1 h at 105 ºC, 2 h at 550 ºC and 2 h at 950 ºC in a muffle furnace.本数据集共包含138个表层沉积物样本，采集自澳大利亚维多利亚州西部的6个海岸分区。本次采样聚焦于滨面及内陆架的松散基质区域。2018年10月至2020年11月期间，各分区采样量分别为：探索湾（Discovery Bay, DB）15份、波特兰（Portland, PL）17份、仙女港（Port Fairy, PF）27份、坎贝尔港（Port Campbell, PC）31份、大洋路（Great Ocean Road, GR）37份以及托基（Torquay, TQ）11份。多数样本采用希佩克采泥器（Shipek grab，n=118）采集，仅20份样本（PF01-PF20）使用范维恩采泥器（Van Veen）获取。最浅的两份样本（PF11与PF11）采集自4米水深，而最深的样本PC01则采自55米水深。本数据集的粒度及烧失量（碳酸盐与有机质）分析均在实验室完成，样品预处理步骤包括盐萃取与60℃烘箱烘干。称取约200g样品进行干筛筛分，以半φ值为间隔直至0φ，以此确定粒度组分；对于粒径小于0φ的细颗粒组分，采用贝克曼库尔特（Beckman Coulter）激光衍射粒度分析仪进行激光扫描检测。粒度统计参数均基于福克与沃德（Folk and Ward, 1957）公式计算得到，单一样本的分析结果通过粒度分布与统计软件GRADISTAT（Blott与Pye, 2001）生成。每份样本称取约4g沉积物，采用烧失量法测定其碳酸盐与有机质含量（Dean, 1974; Heiri et al., 2001）。具体操作步骤为：将研磨粉碎后的样品置于陶瓷坩埚中，放入马弗炉，依次在105℃下保温1小时、550℃下保温2小时以及950℃下保温2小时。