RV Southern Surveyor was an Australian marine research vessel. It was owned and managed by the CSIRO to undertake oceanographic, geoscience, ecosystem and fisheries research. It was built by Brooke Marine in Lowestoft, England in 1972 and acquired by the CSIRO in 1988. It was replaced in 2014 by the RV Investigator.
The ship carried out 111 Marine National Facility research voyages in the course of which she travelled 481,550 kilometres. 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.