minerals Article Visual Imaging of Benthic Carbonate-Mixed Factories in the Ross Sea Region Marine Protected Area, Antarctica Giorgio Castellan 1,† , Lorenzo Angeletti 1 , Simonepietro Canese 2, Claudio Mazzoli 3 , Paolo Montagna 4 , Stefano Schiaparelli 5,6 and Marco Taviani 1,2,7,* 1 Institute of Marine Sciences, National Research Council (CNR-ISMAR), Via Gobetti 101, 40129 Bologna, Italy;
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[email protected] (L.A.) 2 Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, Villa Comunale, 80121 Naples, Italy;
[email protected] 3 Department of Geosciences, University of Padua, Via Gradenigo 6, 35131 Padua, Italy;
[email protected] 4 Institute of Polar Sciences, National Research Council (CNR-ISP), Via Gobetti 101, 40129 Bologna, Italy;
[email protected] 5 Department of Earth, Environmental and Life Sciences (DISTAV), University of Genoa, Corso Europa 26, 16132 Genoa, Italy;
[email protected] 6 Italian National Antarctic Museum (MNA, Section of Genoa), University of Genoa, Viale Benedetto XV No. 5, 16132 Genoa, Italy 7 Biology Department, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, 266 Woods Hole Road, Woods Hole, MA 02543, USA * Correspondence:
[email protected]; Tel.: +39-051-639-8874 † Present address: Department of Biology, Temple University, 1900 N 12th St, Philadelphia, PA 19122, USA. Abstract: Marine biogenic skeletal production is the prevalent source of Ca-carbonate in today’s Antarctic seas. Most information, however, derives from the post-mortem legacy of calcifying organisms. Prior imagery and evaluation of Antarctic habitats hosting calcifying benthic organisms are poorly present in the literature, therefore, a Remotely Operated Vehicle survey was carried out Citation: Castellan, G.; Angeletti, L.; in the Ross Sea region Marine Protected Area during the 2013–2014 austral summer.