Carbonate mounds
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English name
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Carbonate mounds
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EUNIS habitat type code
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A6.75
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Level
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4
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Edition
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EUNIS Habitat Classification 2012 - a revision of the habitat classification descriptions.
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Description ( English )
Carbonate mounds are very steep-sided mounds of variety of shapes, which may be up to 350 m high and 2 km wide at their base (Weering et al, 2003). They occur offshore in water depths of 500 m-1100 m with examples present in the Porcupine Seabight and Rockall Trough (Kenyon et al, 2003). Carbonate mounds may have a sediment veneer, typically composed of carbonate sands, muds and silts. The cold-water reef-building corals [Lophelia pertusa] and [Madrepora oculata], as well as echiuran worms are characteristic fauna of carbonate mounds. Where cold-water corals (such as [Lophelia]) are present on the mound summit, coral debris may form a significant component of the overlying substratum.
There is currently speculation on the origin of carbonate mounds, with possible associations with fault-controlled methane seepage from deep hydrocarbon reservoirs, or gas-hydrate dissociation (Henriet et al, 1998) through to the debris from ‘cold-water’ coral colonies such as [Lophelia].
Source
OSPAR (2004)
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