THE TEMPERATE EAST MARINE REGION
“The region’s marine parks provide vital refuges for 106 species of marine life that are globally threatened, two of which are critically endangered — the grey nurse shark and black cod”
The Temperate East Marine Region encompasses almost 1.5 million square kilometres of Commonwealth waters from the southern boundaries of the Great Barrier Reef and Coral Sea Marine Parks, 40km north of Bundaberg in Queensland to Bermagui in southern New South Wales. The Region borders shallow state waters 3NM from the coastal baseline and extends to deep ocean at the limit of Australia’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) 1000km offshore at its widest reach. It also joins state waters surrounding Lord Howe Island and rises to the high-water mark on Norfolk Island, which is a Commonwealth territory.
The Region contains eight marine parks — Gifford, Norfolk, Lord Howe, Central Eastern, Solitary Islands, Cod Grounds, Hunter, and Jervis — that collectively span 383,339 sqkm of spectacular subtropical and temperate environments.
THE PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT
The Region’s submarine landscape was shaped during the last 110 million years by the rifting and separation of Australia’s eastern continental crust from the Lord Howe Rise, followed by periods of volcanic activity and subsidence. These tectonic forces forged a narrow continental shelf, beyond which the seafloor has a complex and varied topography: a shelf break incised by canyons; an expansive abyssal plain with basins, trenches and troughs; rocky reefs; deep-water terraces and plateaus linked by ridges and saddles, isolated guyots, and chains of conical seamounts.
Most of the Region covers the continental slope where water depths range from 1000m to more than 5800m in holes
