Introduction

The Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS) is an Australian Government initiative established under the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy and the Super Science Initiative and supported by Queensland and Western Australian State Governments.

AIMS operates the Queensland and Northern Australia Moorings (QNAM) sub-facility of the IMOS Australian National Mooring Network (ANMN). The array is located in the northern tropics along the Great Barrier Reef for Q-IMOS and in the north western parts of Australia for the North West Shelf nodes. The mooring arrays provide near real time and delayed mode observations from oceanographic moorings comprising physical (temperature, salinity, sea level and currents) and water quality measurements (turbidity, fluorescence, PAR).

These pages are provided to assist users to discover what, when and where instruments have been deployed. Locations, mooring diagrams, instrument setups and filenames are provided. Level FV00 and FV01 data is accessed through the AODN data portal via www.imos.org.au. Links to the ANMN data on the thredds server are also available in these pages for each instrument.

The Queensland (Q-IMOS) node of Australia's Integrated Marine Observing System was established in 2007 along the GBR and extends an earlier long term observing programme. The Q-IMOS GBR array is located along the outer Great Barrier Reef in order to monitor the Western Boundary currents of the Coral Sea comprising the poleward East Australian Current and the equatorward Gulf of Papua Current. Four mooring pairs consist of a continental slope mooring in 70 to 300m of water and its partner on the outer continental shelf within the reef matrix in depths of 30 to 70m. The array is designed to detect any changes in circulation, temperature response, mixed layer depth and ocean-shelf exchanges.

The Northern (NWS) observations commenced in June 2010 with the roll out of 4 moorings from Joseph Bonaparte Gulf to the Timor Slope. This array was withdrawn in 2019. These continental shelf moorings complemented a deep water array monitoring the Indonesian Throughflow in the Timor Trough and Ombai Strait and were operated by CSIRO. From early 2012 to 2014 two more arrays were added off the Kimberley and Pilbara continental shelf regions. The arrays aimed to monitor boundary currents such as the Holloway and Leeuwin Currents. Cross-shelf exchanges are also observed in these high energy macro-tidal and internal wave dominated shelves.

Three of the 9 National Reference Stations are also operated by AIMS at Ningaloo (withdrawn August 2014) and 2 near real-time moorings near Darwin and the Yongala Wreck in the lagoon of the GBR. Sensors on the reference stations provide data on met-ocean parameters every 30 minutes. These include wind direction and speed, wave height and water velocity.

The Yongala National Reference Station was established in November 2007. It is located near the historic Yongala wreck - a major recreational dive attraction south-east of Townsville. It was converted to near real-time in September 2013.

The Darwin NRS utilises a channel marker at the start of the fairway, and has been providing valuable information to the Darwin Port Corporation since 2009. It was originally located on channel marker number 5, then re-loacted to channel marker number 1 in February 2015. This system delivers the information needed to support the development and operational management of the ports. Most ports and harbours are multi-use regions supporting industry and recreational activities, and observing systems play an important role in both port operations, and in generating an understanding of processes that impact the sustainable use and development of these areas (e.g. sediment transport, water quality).

The Beagle Gulf mooring extended seaward oceanographic observations from Darwin Harbour and complemented the National Reference Station. The mooring was upgraded to near real time in September 2014 and withdrawn in July 2017.

Current status of the moorings are shown below: