This record describes the seabed image data (digitised 35 mm slide still camera images) collected during the NORFANZ voyage on the Norfolk Ridge and Lord Howe Rise in the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand, in May-June 2003. Fourteen seamount and slope sites were sampled, 10 on the Norfolk Ridge and 4 on the Lord Howe Rise. The camera was deployed using two systems: (1) a headline camera unit deployed with the orange roughy net, and (2) a vertical-drop camera system. The headline camera system yielded usable photographs from 14 operations at 6 sites on the Norfolk Ridge and 1 operation at 1 site on the Lord Howe Rise where the camera frame got heavily damaged. The drop camera system was used on 7 occasions: 5 operations at 4 sites on the Norfolk Ridge and 2 operations at 2 sites on the Lord Howe Rise. The dataset contains 2141 images of the seabed.

This record describes the acoustic data collected using the EM300 multibeam echosounder and the ES60 single beam echosounder during the NORFANZ voyage on the Norfolk Ridge and Lord Howe Rise in the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand, in May-June 2003. Fourteen seamount and slope sites were surveyed using the EM300 multibeam echosounder, 10 on the Norfolk Ridge and 4 on the Lord Howe Rise. There is a total of 4 gigabytes of raw EM300 data. Sound velocity profiles were processed to make TIFF images of backscatter (bs - grey scale), digital terrain model (dtm - sun illuminated colored bathymetry) , and elevation model (ele - very dark images) for each of the 14 sites. Each tiff file has an associated TIFF world files (.tfw) for a mercator 41 degree projection with origin at 100 degrees east. ES60 data for the voyage is stored in a local directory. There are 666 MB of data in EK5 format, made up of 134 files of 5MB each.

This record describes the biological survey data (species IDs and catch compositions) collected during the NORFANZ voyage on the Norfolk Ridge and Lord Howe Rise in the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand, in May-June 2003. Fourteen seamount and slope sites were sampled, 10 on the Norfolk Ridge and 4 on the Lord Howe Rise. A total of 168 operations were completed, including 144 trawl-sled-dredge shots, in depths ranging from less than 100 m to over 2000 m. Gear types included bottom trawls, midwater trawl, beam trawl, epibenthic sleds, and rock and pipe dredges. The dataset contains records of 1,622 macroinvertebrate species or provisional species units in 15 phyla, and 582 fish species in 122 families, and is expected to include a significant percentage of species new to science. Species identifications received from expert taxonomists received up to 2012 have been integrated into the catch data that are archived by the CSIRO Data Centre and available through the CSIRO Marine data trawler. Specimens are all lodged in Australian and New Zealand museum collections Accompanying these survey data are photographs and, in some cases, voucher specimens which are described in separate metadata records. To date at least 21 taxonomic revisions and species descriptions used material collected in this survey.

The project aims to integrate and synthesise data on deepsea octocoral identifications and distribution from CSIRO surveys and museum holdings in Australian waters to support research such as identification of ecological and biological significant areas (EBSA) and vulnerable marine ecosystems (VME), climatology, monitoring of benthic habitats (impacts and recovery) and biogeography. The confirmed octocoral identifications are added to or updated in CAAB as necessary, with 99-codes being established for alpha-species Operational Taxonomic Units (OTUs) based on the combined collection. In addition, project staff Dr Phil Alderslade is contributing to training workshops and guides for coral identification in collaboration with NIWA. The geographic extent of the project is primarily Australia's EEZ but reaching into neighbouring Oceania regions (e.g. NZ, NC). Physical specimens are lodged with Australian museums based on region of collection: (1) North Tasman Region: Northern Territory Museum & Art Gallery (NTM), with some duplicate specimens lodged with the Australian Museum (AM); (2) south-eastern Australia region: Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (TMAG); (3) south-western and north-western Australia: Western Australian Museum (WAM). RELATED ACRONYMS: RAD -Rank Abundance Distributions EBSA -Ecological and Biological Significant Areas VME -Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems OTU -Operational Taxonomic Units CAAB -Codes for Australian Aquatic Biota (CSIRO)