Early disagenesis of deep-water coral mounds, Atlantic Ocean

大西洋深水珊瑚丘的早期成岩作用

• 批准号: 356118-2007
• 负责人: Neuweiler, Fritz
• 金额: $ 3.1万
• 依托单位: Université Laval
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Special Research Opportunity Program - Project
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2009-01-01 至 2010-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=431950
• 关键词: Early; disagenesis; deep; water; coral

Modern, deep-water coral carbonate mounds of the northern, circum-Atlantic region are known for their support of a high biodiversity, their record of past climatic and oceanographic changes, and their vulnerability to present environmental perturbation such as ocean "acidification". Since their rediscovery in the early 90s of the last century, these deep-water coral mounds are in perennial focus to represent a modern analogue of what geologists know and describe as "mud-rich carbonate mounds". Mud-rich carbonate mounds are important geological structures (evolution of the metazoa, hydrocarbon reservoir rocks) that, however, defy a straightforward explanation of their formation. Indeed, their content of fossils does not allow the recognition of a simple skeletal growth framework as it exits in modern and ancient reef rocks. A number of geological evidences point to the fact that these mounds grew literally "from the inside" via the authigenic precipitation of carbonate minerals during the degradation and cycling of metazoan tissue and related dissolved organic matter. This project takes advantage of a drilling campaign addressed to modern, deep-water coral mounds off Morocco. At present, these mounds are in a stage of suboxic degradation and therefore will allow the exploration of the microbial and organochemical impact on mound formation "caught in the act". This research is performed as an invited Canadian contribution to the MiCROSYSTEMS and CHEMECO projects, two interdisciplinary collaborative research projects of the EUROCORES-EuroDIVERSITY and -EuroDEEP program of the European Science Foundation.

北部环大西洋地区的现代深水碳酸珊瑚丘以其高度的生物多样性、过去气候和海洋变化的记录以及对当前环境扰动（例如海洋“酸化”）的脆弱性而闻名。自从上世纪 90 年代初重新发现以来，这些深水珊瑚丘一直受到人们的关注，代表了地质学家所知道和描述的“富含泥浆的碳酸盐丘”的现代类似物。富含泥浆的碳酸盐丘是重要的地质结构（后生动物、碳氢化合物储层岩石的演化），然而，它们的形成却无法直接解释。事实上，它们的化石含量不允许识别现代和古代珊瑚礁岩石中存在的简单骨骼生长框架。许多地质证据表明，这些土丘实际上是通过后生动物组织和相关溶解有机物的降解和循环过程中碳酸盐矿物的自生沉淀“从内部”生长的。该项目利用了针对摩洛哥近海现代深水珊瑚丘的钻探活动。目前，这些土丘正处于低氧降解阶段，因此将允许探索微生物和有机化学对“现场”土丘形成的影响。这项研究是受加拿大邀请对 MiCROSYSTEMS 和 CHEMECO 项目的贡献，这是欧洲科学基金会 EUROCORES-EuroDIVERSITY 和 -EuroDEEP 计划的两个跨学科合作研究项目。