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Seamount Physiography and Biology in the North-East Atlantic and Open Access Open Access Mediterranean Sea Earth System Earth System Dynamics 1 1 1 1 2 Dynamics3 1 T EGU Journal Logos (RGB) Open Access Open Access Open Access Advances in Annales Nonlinear Processes Geosciences Geophysicae in Geophysics Open Access Open Access Natural Hazards Natural Hazards and Earth System and Earth System Sciences Sciences Discussions Open Access Open Access Atmospheric Atmospheric Chemistry Chemistry and Physics and Physics Discussions Open Access Open Access Atmospheric Atmospheric Measurement Measurement Techniques Techniques Discussions Open Access Biogeosciences, 10, 3039–3054, 2013 Open Access www.biogeosciences.net/10/3039/2013/ Biogeosciences doi:10.5194/bg-10-3039-2013 Biogeosciences Discussions © Author(s) 2013. CC Attribution 3.0 License. Open Access Open Access Climate Climate of the Past of the Past Discussions Seamount physiography and biology in the north-east Atlantic and Open Access Open Access Mediterranean Sea Earth System Earth System Dynamics 1 1 1 1 2 Dynamics3 1 T. Morato , K. Ø. Kvile , G. H. Taranto , F. Tempera , B. E. Narayanaswamy , D. Hebbeln , G. M. Menezes , Discussions C. Wienberg3, R. S. Santos1, and T. J. Pitcher1,4 1Centre of IMAR of the University of the Azores, Departamento de Oceanografia e Pescas and LARSyS Associated Open Access Open Access Laboratory, Universidade dos Ac¸ores, 9901-382 Horta, Portugal Geoscientific Geoscientific 2SAMS, Scottish Association for Marine Science, Scottish Marine Institute, Oban, Argyll,Instrumentation Scotland Instrumentation 3MARUM, Center for Marine Environmental Sciences, University of Bremen, Leobener Straße,Methods 28359 Bremen, and Germany 4 Methods and Fisheries Centre, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada Data Systems Data Systems Correspondence to: T. Morato ([email protected]) Discussions Open Access Open Access Geoscientific Received: 23 November 2012 – Published in Biogeosciences Discuss.: 20 December 2012 Geoscientific Revised: 8 March 2013 – Accepted: 8 April 2013 – Published: 6 May 2013 Model Development Model Development Discussions Abstract. This work aims at characterising the seamount 1 Introduction Open Access physiography and biology in the OSPAR Convention limits Open Access (north-east Atlantic Ocean) and Mediterranean Sea. We first Hydrology and Hydrology and inferred potential abundance, location and morphological Seamounts are commonEarth underwater System features in the world Earth System characteristics of seamounts, and secondly, summarized the oceans and are traditionally described as isolated elevations existing biological, geological and oceanographic in situ re- greater than 1000 m in relief aboveSciences the seafloor (Menard, Sciences search, identifying examples of well-studied seamounts. Our 1964; International Hydrographic Organization, 2008). How- Discussions Open Access study showed that the seamount population in the OSPAR ever, no ecological rationale seems to support theOpen Access traditional area (north-east Atlantic) and in the Mediterranean Sea is size limit (Pitcher et al., 2007; Wessel, 2007) and this defi- Ocean Science large with around 557 and 101 seamount-like features, re- nition has been extensivelyOcean modified Science in the literature to bet- Discussions spectively. Similarly, seamounts occupy large areas of about ter satisfy the needs of different disciplines (Staudigel et al., 616 000 km2 in the OSPAR region and of about 89 500 km2 2010). Since small underwater features may also play an im- in the Mediterranean Sea. The presence of seamounts in the portant role in deep and high sea ecosystems (e.g. Koslow Open Access Open Access north-east Atlantic has been known since the late 19th cen- et al., 2001), we considered features greater than 100 m in tury, but overall knowledge regarding seamount ecology and height as small seamounts and defined elevations taller than Solid Earth 1000 m as large seamounts (sensuSolid Pitcher Earth et al., 2007). geology is still relatively poor. Only 37 seamounts in the Discussions OSPAR area (3.5 % of all seamounts in the region), 22 in The total number of seamounts at a global scale has been the Mediterranean Sea (9.2 % of all seamounts in the region) estimated in several studies mainly by running mathematical algorithms on global bathymetry grids inferred from satellite and 25 in the north-east Atlantic south of the OSPAR area Open Access Open Access have in situ information. Seamounts mapped in both areas altimetry and acoustic soundings (e.g. Kitchingman and Lai, are in general very heterogeneous, showing diverse geophys- 2004; Wessel et al., 2010; Kim and Wessel, 2011; Yesson The Cryosphere et al., 2011). Currently,The these Cryosphere approaches are unable to ade- ical characteristics. These differences will likely affect the bi- Discussions ological diversity and production of resident and associated quately detect small and deep peaks, and thus the estimates of organisms. the global abundance of seamounts still bear large uncertain- ties. A more accurate approach would be to locate seamounts on bathymetry grids originated by shipboard bathymetric profiles. However, the small area of the ocean floor explored using multibeam bathymetry prevents improved analyses of seamount location, morphology and abundance (Hillier and Published by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union. 3040 T. Morato et al.: Seamount physiography and biology in the north-east Atlantic and Mediterranean Sea Watts, 2007). Recent estimates of the number of seamounts some vulnerable marine ecosystems (Pitcher et al., 2010; worldwide range from about 25 000 to about 140 000 large Taranto et al., 2012; FAO, 2009). Therefore, some actions features and potentially from 125 000 to 25 million small have been taken to regulate the use of seamount resources seamounts or knolls greater than 100 m in height (Wessel et (NEAFC, 2011; Santos et al., 2009, 2010; Morato et al., al., 2010; Kim and Wessel, 2011; Yesson et al., 2011). De- 2010c). Major concerns are related to seamount fishing, espe- spite this imprecision, such estimates highlight seamounts as cially trawling that physically destroys reef-building organ- one of the most prevalent set of habitats of the seabed, form- isms (Williams et al., 2010), disturbs the abundant seamount ing one of the largest biomes on earth with about 28.8 million filter feeding communities by sediment re-suspension (Clark km2 (Etnoyer et al., 2010). et al., 2010), and selectively removes long-lived commer- The Oslo–Paris Convention for the Protection of the Ma- cially valuable fish species (Pitcher, 2010) that are extremely rine Environment of the north-east Atlantic (OSPAR; http: vulnerable to heavy fishing (Morato et al., 2006). Besides //www.ospar.org) is an international legal instrument made fisheries, deep-sea mining is an emerging issue in seamount of representatives of the governments of 15 Contracting management that may seriously affect seamount ecosystems Parties and the European Commission. OSPAR has in- in the future (Halfar and Fujita, 2007; Hein et al., 2010; He cluded seamounts in the list of threatened and/or declining et al., 2011; Van Dover, 2011). habitats and defined these features as undersea mountains However, not all seamounts share the same set of proper- whose summits rise more than 1000 m above the surround- ties and threats (Rowden et al., 2005; Morato et al., 2010b; ing seafloor (OSPAR, 2008). The official OSPAR database Clark et al., 2012; Taranto et al., 2012). Therefore, a clear (consulted in September 2011) included 104 seamounts in understanding of spatial patterns of threats, biological diver- the high seas and territorial waters of Norway, Sweden, Faroe sity, production and geophysical properties is crucial for the Islands, UK, Ireland, France, Spain and Portugal. They are, success of conservation and management actions (Morato et however, still underestimated since many more seamounts al., 2010c), and for the understanding of oceanographic, geo- are known in the Mid-Atlantic Ridge or in many exclusive logical and ecological processes associated with seamounts. economic zones (EEZs). For example, from the Kitchingman This work aims at characterising the seamount physiogra- et al. (2007) dataset there may be at least 339 large seamounts phy and biology in OSPAR area, the north-east Atlantic, and in the OSPAR area and about 59 in the Mediterranean Sea. the Mediterranean Sea. We first inferred potential abundance, More recently, Kim and Wessel (2011) estimated the number location and morphological characteristics of seamounts in of seamounts greater than 1000 m in height in the OSPAR the OSPAR area and Mediterranean waters applying a detec- area as 132 (850 greater than 500 m), while they consider no tion model on the latest bathymetric information available. seamounts to occur in the Mediterranean Sea. However, these Secondly, we summarized the existing biological, geologi- estimates were based on global bathymetry datasets that did cal and oceanographic in situ research, pointing out gaps in not consider the most recent multibeam bathymetry surveys seamount investigation, potentially distinctive features and conducted in the region. examples of well-studied seamounts. In this way, we hope Recently, the importance of seamount ecosystems has to achieve a snapshot of the knowledge status of seamount been recognized by the scientific community, management ecosystems in the north-east Atlantic and Mediterranean ar- authorities, industry and conservation initiatives (Stocks et eas, which may represent basic information on which to build al., 2012). Properties associated with underwater reliefs
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