The ship carried out 111 Marine National Facility research voyages, in the course of which she travelled 481,550 kilometres, in addition to some 90 for
CSIRO Division of Fisheries Research/Fisheries in the period before it was operated as the National Facility, from 1990 to 2003. Achievements include the discovery of
submarine volcanoes between
Fiji and
Samoa, the compilation of climate records from ancient
corals, the production of a
carbon chemistry map of the
Great Barrier Reef, and the 2006 discovery of a 200 km diameter
vortex in the waters above the
Perth Canyon off the coast of
Rottnest Island. In 2012 the Southern Surveyor confirmed the undiscovery of
Sandy Island. ==Science data access==