Glacial-aged development of the Tunisian Coral Mound Province controlled by glacio-eustatic oscillations and changes in surface productivity
Glacial-aged development of the Tunisian Coral Mound Province controlled by glacio-eustatic oscillations and changes in surface productivity
Cold-water corals are key species of benthic ecosystems, sensitive to changes in climate and capable of recording them in the chemical composition of their skeletons. The study of cold-water coral mound development in relation to palaeoceanographic variations during the Pleistocene and Holocene stages in the Mediterranean Sea has mainly been focussed in the Alboran Sea (Western Mediterranean). The present study describes the coral deposits and corresponding ages of 3 gravity cores, acquired from the newly discovered Tunisian Coral Mound Province (Central Mediterranean), which comprises several ridge-like mounds. All the cores acquired displayed dense coral deposits, dominated by Desmophyllum pertusum fragments embedded within a muddy sediment matrix. Overall, 64 coral samples have been dated with the U[sbnd]Th laser ablation MC-ICP-MS method, revealing corals of mostly Pleistocene age ranging from ~MIS 11 to 8.4 ka BP. Although coral mound formation was reduced for most of the last 400 kyr, a main stage of pronounced mound formation occurred during the last glacial period, which contrasts to the findings previously published for coral mounds in other regions of the Mediterranean Sea. Coral mound formation during the last glacial was most likely associated with a colder seawater temperature than the one observed in the present-day, an increased surface productivity and an appropriate depth of the interface between Atlantic Waters and Levantine Intermediate Waters. The combination of the data acquired here with that of previous mound formation studies from the Alboran Sea also suggests that cold-water coral mounds located at greater depths develop at slower rates than those found in shallower settings.
Cold-water corals, Coral mounds, Glacial, Laser ablation U–Th dating, Levantine intermediate water, Mediterranean paleoclimate, Productivity, Water mass interface
Corbera, Guillem
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Lo Iacono, Claudio
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Standish, Christopher D.
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Gràcia, Eulàlia
4cdbab2b-dd60-496b-aeef-76ae9c30e48d
Ranero, César
c01a0a46-de98-4439-890d-915f8291cad9
Huvenne, Veerle A.I.
f22be3e2-708c-491b-b985-a438470fa053
Anagnostou, Eleni
4527c274-f765-44ce-89ab-0e437aa3d870
Foster, Gavin L.
fbaa7255-7267-4443-a55e-e2a791213022
18 March 2022
Corbera, Guillem
1febfc41-8f18-4d13-ab55-a56640587f81
Lo Iacono, Claudio
2ec2b5f4-a134-462b-b8ba-f7bd757040f5
Standish, Christopher D.
0b996271-da5d-4c4f-9e05-a2ec90e8561d
Gràcia, Eulàlia
4cdbab2b-dd60-496b-aeef-76ae9c30e48d
Ranero, César
c01a0a46-de98-4439-890d-915f8291cad9
Huvenne, Veerle A.I.
f22be3e2-708c-491b-b985-a438470fa053
Anagnostou, Eleni
4527c274-f765-44ce-89ab-0e437aa3d870
Foster, Gavin L.
fbaa7255-7267-4443-a55e-e2a791213022
Corbera, Guillem, Lo Iacono, Claudio, Standish, Christopher D., Gràcia, Eulàlia, Ranero, César, Huvenne, Veerle A.I., Anagnostou, Eleni and Foster, Gavin L.
(2022)
Glacial-aged development of the Tunisian Coral Mound Province controlled by glacio-eustatic oscillations and changes in surface productivity.
Marine Geology, 446, [106772].
(doi:10.1016/j.margeo.2022.106772).
Abstract
Cold-water corals are key species of benthic ecosystems, sensitive to changes in climate and capable of recording them in the chemical composition of their skeletons. The study of cold-water coral mound development in relation to palaeoceanographic variations during the Pleistocene and Holocene stages in the Mediterranean Sea has mainly been focussed in the Alboran Sea (Western Mediterranean). The present study describes the coral deposits and corresponding ages of 3 gravity cores, acquired from the newly discovered Tunisian Coral Mound Province (Central Mediterranean), which comprises several ridge-like mounds. All the cores acquired displayed dense coral deposits, dominated by Desmophyllum pertusum fragments embedded within a muddy sediment matrix. Overall, 64 coral samples have been dated with the U[sbnd]Th laser ablation MC-ICP-MS method, revealing corals of mostly Pleistocene age ranging from ~MIS 11 to 8.4 ka BP. Although coral mound formation was reduced for most of the last 400 kyr, a main stage of pronounced mound formation occurred during the last glacial period, which contrasts to the findings previously published for coral mounds in other regions of the Mediterranean Sea. Coral mound formation during the last glacial was most likely associated with a colder seawater temperature than the one observed in the present-day, an increased surface productivity and an appropriate depth of the interface between Atlantic Waters and Levantine Intermediate Waters. The combination of the data acquired here with that of previous mound formation studies from the Alboran Sea also suggests that cold-water coral mounds located at greater depths develop at slower rates than those found in shallower settings.
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More information
Accepted/In Press date: 8 March 2022
e-pub ahead of print date: 16 March 2022
Published date: 18 March 2022
Additional Information:
Funding Information:
Guillem Corbera is funded by the Graduate School of the National Oceanography Centre Southampton (GSNOCS) . Veerle Huvenne is supported by the NERC -funded CLASS programme (Grant No. NE/R015953/1 ) and the EU H2020 programme iAtlantic (Grant No 818123 ). We are thankful to all the scientists and crew of the Geomargen-2 Cruise for their outstanding work. We are grateful to Richard Pearce for performing the XRD analysis, along with Andy Milton and Mathew Cooper for their help with analytical aspects of the study and Heather Goring-Harford for her assistance in acquiring a subset of the trace element data. We appreciate the help provided by Suzanne MacLachlan and the British Ocean Sediment Core Research Facility (BOSCORF) team during sampling. We are also grateful to Laura Robinson for supplying the VS001/1-A standard. Lastly, we are thankful to the anonymous reviewers whose comments and suggestions greatly improved this manuscript. The regional Digital Terrain Model data products have been derived from the EMODnet Bathymetry portal - http://www.emodnet-bathymetry.eu .
Keywords:
Cold-water corals, Coral mounds, Glacial, Laser ablation U–Th dating, Levantine intermediate water, Mediterranean paleoclimate, Productivity, Water mass interface
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 485266
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/485266
ISSN: 0025-3227
PURE UUID: 394254b8-4f16-4004-b1bd-8d04721303fb
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Date deposited: 01 Dec 2023 17:50
Last modified: 17 Mar 2024 03:35
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Contributors
Author:
Guillem Corbera
Author:
Claudio Lo Iacono
Author:
Eulàlia Gràcia
Author:
César Ranero
Author:
Veerle A.I. Huvenne
Author:
Eleni Anagnostou
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