IMOS - Animal Tracking Facility - Satellite Relay Tagging Program - Near real-time data with quality-controlled locations

The Animal Tagging Sub-Facility of the IMOS Animal Tracking Facility (formerly known as the Australian Animal Tracking And Monitoring System (AATAMS)) is a coordinated marine animal satellite-tracking project. Satellite Relay Data Loggers (SRDL) (most with Conductivity-Temperature-Depth (CTD) sensors, and some with CTD/fluorometers) are used to explore how marine animals (e.g. mammals) interact with their oceanic environment. The primary focus of this program is to collect CTD data from marine mammals, such as southern elephant seals (Mirounga leonina) and Weddell seals (Leptonychotes weddellii), in the southern Indian Ocean and along the East Antarctic coast. This is achieved through international collaborations with the French national polar program's long-term National Observatory Services: Mammals as Ocean Bio-Samplers (SNO-MEMO), the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research as part of the Ross Sea Research and Monitoring Programme, and the CNES (Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales) TOSCA programme (Phoques de Weddell bio-oceanographes de la banquise antarctique et outils satellites) in Terre Adelie. SRDL loggers developed at the Sea Mammal Research Unit (SMRU, University of St Andrews, UK) transmit data in near real time via the Argos satellite system. This metadata record, represents several different datasets listed hereafter, which can all be accessed through a multi-WFS service. 

Between January 2022 and June 2024, a pilot study co-funded by the Royal Australian Navy in collaboration with the Australian Institute of Marine Science and Indigenous Ranger groups was initiated to determine whether conductivity-temperature-depth instruments mounted on turtles could provide essential observations spatially and vertically in the seas of Northern Australia. Following on from this successful pilot program, from May 2025, IMOS-funded turtle deployments in collaboration with local Indigenous Ranger groups, have occurred across the Timor and Arafura seas. Accurate tropical storm and cyclone forecasting depends on understanding the thermal structure of the upper ocean, and sub-surface observations collected by instrumented sea turtles, have emerged as a uniquely valuable source of this data. Common observing platforms such as Argo floats and moored buoys provide important but spatially limited snapshots of ocean conditions, whereas biologging tags attached to sea turtles yield high-resolution, sub-surface temperature and salinity profiles across regions that are logistically difficult and costly to sample by conventional means. Turtles equipped with miniaturised CTD (conductivity, temperature, and depth) sensors naturally dive through the upper 200 metres of the water column, precisely the depth range that governs ocean heat content (OHC) and the mixed-layer depth most relevant to tropical cyclone intensification.  

The data represented by this record are presented in near real-time. 
CTD - parameters measured by the instruments include time, depth, conductivity (salinity), temperature, speed and fluorescence (available in some deployments). 
Diving - parameters measured by the instruments include individual dive start and end time, longitude/latitude at dive end time, post-dive surface duration, dive duration, maximum dive depth, intermediate dive depths and times. 
Haulout - a haulout begins when the SRDL has been continuously dry for a specified length of time (usually 10 minutes). It ends when continuously wet for another interval (usually 40 seconds). Haulout data parameters measured by the instruments include haulout start and end dates and longitude/latitude, and haulout number. 
Argos Locations - location data parameters measured by the instruments include time, longitude, latitude, location quality, along with other diagnostic information provided by Argos (http://www.argos-system.org/). 
Summary Statistics - as well as sending records of individual events such as dives and haulouts, the SRDL also calculates summary statistics of those events over a specified time period (usually 3, 4 or 6 hours). Summary statistics computed by the instruments include the proportion of time spent diving, at the surface and hauled-out, the number of dives, and the average, standard deviation and maximum dive duration and dive depth during each summary period. These statistics are based on all the data recorded by the SRDL and thus are not prone to distortion by variations in the efficiency of transmission via Argos. 
SSM QC Locations - SSM-predicted locations and uncertainty at 6-h intervals from the location quality-control process. SSM-predicted locations are also appended to records in the CTD, Diving, Haulout, Argos Locations, and Summary Statistics datasets. See Jonsen et al. 2020 for further details on the SSM used for location quality control

Tags: Agency | SMRU | Sea Mammal Research Unit, CTD Satellite Relay Data Logger, Continents | Antarctica, Countries | Australia, Countries | New Zealand, Global / Oceans | Atlantic Ocean, Global / Oceans | Indian Ocean, Global / Oceans | Pacific Ocean, Global / Oceans | Southern Ocean, Marine Features (Australia) | Bass Strait, TAS/VIC, Marine Features (Australia) | Great Australian Bight, SA/WA, Oceans | Marine Biology | Marine Birds, Oceans | Marine Biology | Marine Mammals, Oceans | Ocean Temperature | Water Temperature, Oceans | Salinity/density | Conductivity, Offshore Islands (Australia) | Heard & McDonald Islands, Offshore Islands (Australia) | Macquarie Island, Regional Seas | Coral Sea, Regional Seas | Tasman Sea, Satellite Tag, States, Territories (Australia) | New South Wales, States, Territories (Australia) | South Australia, States, Territories (Australia) | Tasmania, States, Territories (Australia) | Victoria, States, Territories (Australia) | Western Australia, Tags and Tracking Devices
Organization: Australian Ocean Data Network