Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2025L00100:front:0:p75
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2025L00100
Segment Type: other
Provision Reference: 
Character Range: 235615–238452

Tasman Rise Marine Park protects mid-slope, lower-slope, abyssal and seamount ecosystems.

The western section of the park includes a large, submerged plateau of continental rock believed to be the last remnant of the link between Australia and Antarctica, when the Australian continent moved north around 100 million years ago. This plateau includes the largest area of mid-slope ecosystem in the South-east Network. Deep-sea coral communities may occur on the shallower parts of this plateau, as they have been found in similar habitats just south of the park.

The eastern section of the park contains several guyots, flat-topped seamounts, rising about 2,300 m above the seafloor. The flat tops are evidence they were once above the ocean's surface, where they were shaped by wind and wave erosion. The guyot tops are now about 2,000 m to 2,300 m below the sea surface – which is likely too deep to support live deep-sea coral communities. In the Tasman Fracture and Huon Marine Parks live deep-sea coral communities are not found deeper than about 1,350 m.

The park contains habitats, species and ecological communities associated with the Tasmania Province provincial bioregion.

The key ecological features represented in the park include:

       * seamounts, east and south of Tasmania.

Figure S1.6 South Tasman Rise Marine Park
Tasman Fracture Marine Park
Proclaimed   28 June 2007 and came into effect on 1 September 2007

Assigned zones in park National Park Zone (II) 22,536 km²

    Multiple Use Zone (VI) 19,965 km²
Depth range   60 m – 5,559 m

Total area   42,501 km²

Overview and summary of values

Tasman Fracture Marine Park (Figure S1.7), off south-west Tasmania, extends from the outer limit of state coastal waters southwards to the outer limit of Australia's Exclusive Economic Zone. It protects a wide range of ecosystems, including rariphotic (rare-light) reefs; shelf sediments; upper, mid, and lower slope reefs and sediments; seamount reefs and sediments; and abyssal plains. It is an area of high productivity due to a combination of ocean currents and upwelling from nearby canyons.

Several small high-profile rariphotic reefs occur in the park mainly in depths of 100 m to 140 m. They are covered by a diverse sessile invertebrate community, which differs from other rariphotic reefs in the network in having a high abundance of soft corals. These reefs support a fish community dominated by splendid perch, butterfly perch, ocean perch, rosy wrasse, morid cod species, draughtboard shark, jackass morwong and striped trumpeter. They also provide important habitat for rock lobster  a keystone species that plays an important role in reef systems and is an important commercial species.

Handfish have been recorded in the park in depths between 92 m and 145 m. Species identifications are yet to