You might think this is an amusing technicality. But in fact it was critical to deciding whether Australia had jurisdiction over the waters around the reef and, ultimately the answer determined the boundary between Australia and Indonesia. Australia's rights to the 200 nautical mile Exclusive Economic Zone are well established. However we are looking to claim areas of the continental shelf beyond the 200 nautical mile limit. It is now a comprehensive geographic information system.
All data is linked to information detailing the quality and origin of each element of the data.
Zone boundaries are computed rigorously using customised software that takes curvature of the earth into account. All data coordinates are supplied in the Geocentric Datum of Australia which makes it immediately compatible with global coordinates obtained from the Global Positioning System. Defining Australia's territorial sea baseline has been a long process. And that's not surprising because Australia has more than sixty thousand kilometres of coastline. But I must also mention Melbourne University's Department of Geomatics.