Cold‐water coral mounds revealed

Abstract

The discovery of mounds and reefs hosting cold‐water coral ecosystems along the northeastern Atlantic continental margins has propelled a vigorous effort over the past decade to study the distribution of the mounds, surface sediments, the ecosystems they host, and their environments [ Hovland et al. , 1994; Freiwald and Roberts , 2005].This effort has involved swath bathymetry, remotely operated vehicle deployments, shallow coring, and seismic surveys. Global coverage is difficult to gauge, but studies indicate that cold‐water corals may cover as large an area as the better known warm‐water corals that form shallow reefs (284,300 square kilometers) [ Freiwald et al. , 2005]. Cold‐water corals occur in a variety of forms and settings, from small isolated colonies or patch reefs to giant mound structures such as those found west of Ireland.