Physical Controls on Coral Communities on the George V Land Slope: Some Working Hypotheses

Dense coral-sponge communities on the upper continental slope off George V Land have been identified as a Vulnerable Marine Ecosystem in the Antarctic. The challenge is now to understand their likely distribution. The CEAMARC survey found these communities at sites on the upper slope in depths of 570 - 950m. Based on these results we propose some working hypotheses defining the physical settings suitable for such assemblages. Icebergs scour to 500m in this region and the lack of such disturbance is probably a factor allowing growth of rich benthic ecosystems. In addition, the richest communities are found in the heads of canyons. We suggest two possible oceanographic mechanisms linking abundant filter feeder communities and canyon heads. The canyons in which they occur receive descending plumes of Antarctic Bottom Water formed on the George V shelf and these water masses could entrain abundant food for the benthos. Maps of water properties measured during the Collaborative East Antarctic Marine Census (CEAMARC) survey provide some support for this idea. Another possibility is that the canyons harbouring rich benthos are those that cut the shelf break. Such canyons are known sites of high productivity in other areas because of a number of oceanographic factors, including strong current flow and increased mixing, and the abrupt, complex topography. These hypotheses provide a framework for the identification of areas where there is a higher likelihood of encountering these Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems.

Simple

Identification info

Date (Publication)
2009-01-01T00:00:00
Citation identifier
Geoscience Australia Persistent Identifier/https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/69269

Cited responsible party
Role Organisation / Individual Name Details
Author

Post, A.L.

 1
Author

O'Brien, P.E.

 2
Author

Beaman, R.J.

 3
Author

Riddle, M.

 4
Author

De Santis, L.

 5
Point of contact
Role Organisation / Individual Name Details
Custodian

EGD
Owner

Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)
Custodian

Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)

 Voice
Topic category
  • Geoscientific information

Extent

N
S
E
W


Maintenance and update frequency
Unknown
Keywords

  • External Publication

  • Report

Theme

  • geomorphology

  • abiotic surrogates

  • Antarctic data

  • marine

Keywords

  • AQ

Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC)

  • Earth Sciences

Keywords

  • Published_External

Resource constraints

Title

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence

Alternate title

CC-BY

Edition

4.0

Website

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/

Access constraints
License
Use constraints
License

Resource constraints

Title

Australian Government Security ClassificationSystem

Edition date
2018-11-01T00:00:00
Website

https://www.protectivesecurity.gov.au/Pages/default.aspx

Classification
Unclassified
Language
English
Character encoding
UTF8

Distribution Information

Distributor contact
Role Organisation / Individual Name Details
Distributor

Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)

 Voice
OnLine resource

Related Product

Obtain the CCAMLR Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems Workshop volume

Resource lineage

Statement

Unknown

Hierarchy level
Non geographic dataset
Other

External Publication

Description

Source data not available.

Metadata constraints

Title

Australian Government Security ClassificationSystem

Edition date
2018-11-01T00:00:00
Website

https://www.protectivesecurity.gov.au/Pages/default.aspx

Classification
Unclassified

Metadata

Metadata identifier
urn:uuid/a05f7892-eca8-7506-e044-00144fdd4fa6

Title

GeoNetwork UUID

Language
English
Character encoding
UTF8
Contact
Role Organisation / Individual Name Details
Point of contact

Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)

 Voice

Type of resource

Resource scope
Document
Name

nonGeographicDataset

Alternative metadata reference

Title

Geoscience Australia - short identifier for metadata record with

uuid

Citation identifier
eCatId/69269

Metadata linkage

https://ecat.ga.gov.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/a05f7892-eca8-7506-e044-00144fdd4fa6

Date info (Revision)
2018-04-22T08:27:47
Date info (Creation)
2009-07-03T00:00:00

Metadata standard

Title

AU/NZS ISO 19115-1:2014

Metadata standard

Title

ISO 19115-1:2014

Metadata standard

Title

ISO 19115-3

Title

Geoscience Australia Community Metadata Profile of ISO 19115-1:2014

Edition

Version 2.0, September 2018

Citation identifier
https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/122551

 
 

Spatial extent

N
S
E
W


Keywords

Antarctic data abiotic surrogates geomorphology marine

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