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.

环大西洋区域北方的现代深水珊瑚碳酸盐土丘以其支持高度生物多样性、其过去气候和海洋变化的记录以及其对海洋“酸化”等当前环境扰动的脆弱性而闻名。自上个世纪90年代初被重新发现以来，这些深水珊瑚土丘常年受到关注，代表了地质学家所知并描述的“富含泥浆的碳酸盐土丘”的现代类似物。富含泥浆的碳酸盐土丘是重要的地质构造（后生动物的演化，油气储集岩），然而，对其形成的直接解释是不成立的。事实上，他们的化石内容不允许承认一个简单的骨骼生长框架，因为它存在于现代和古代的礁岩。许多地质证据表明，这些土丘是在后生动物组织和相关溶解有机物的降解和循环过程中，通过碳酸盐矿物的自生沉淀从内部生长出来的。该项目利用了针对摩洛哥近海现代深水珊瑚土丘的钻探活动。目前，这些土丘正处于低氧降解阶段，因此可以探索“当场”发生的微生物和有机化学物质对土丘形成的影响。这项研究是作为邀请加拿大贡献的MiCROSYSTEMS和CHEMECO项目，两个跨学科的合作研究项目的欧洲科学基金会的EUROCORES-EuroDiversity和-EuroDEEP计划。