IMOS and National Science Week 2025
As we celebrate National Science Week 2025 and this year’s theme, “Decoding the Universe – Exploring the unknown with nature’s hidden language,” we dive beneath the waves to explore how IMOS is helping scientists unlock the mysteries of Australia’s oceans.
From the coast to the deep sea, two of the IMOS Facilities, Acoustic Telemetry and Argo Floats, are providing the data needed to understand and protect marine life and ecosystems in a changing climate.
Acoustic Telemetry uses a vast underwater network of acoustic receivers placed around Australia’s coastline to detect and track tagged marine animals such as crustaceans, fish, sea snakes, sharks, rays and crocodiles. Each tag emits a unique acoustic ‘ping’, allowing scientists to monitor where these animals travel, when they move, and how they respond to changes in their environment. These long-term movement patterns help researchers understand species behaviour, migration, and habitat use which is vital knowledge for conservation, fisheries management, and biodiversity protection.
Out in the open ocean, Argo Floats drift and sink to depths of 2,000 metres, measuring temperature, salinity, and pressure. IMOS deploys the floats throughout the Indian, Pacific, and Southern Oceans, and the floats surface every 10 days to transmit their data via satellite. This global network allows scientists to track how heat and freshwater move through the ocean, helping decode large-scale processes like El Niño events, ocean heat content, ocean circulation, sea level rise and long-term climate change.
These are just two of the many ways IMOS collects critical marine data to help understand our oceans, and why they’re changing.
Header image: Fabrice Jaine