Information
- Type
- Project
- Name
- Mid-latitude carbonate systems: complete sequences from cold-water coral carbonate mounds in the northeast Atlantic
- Acronym
- CARBONATE
- Description @en
- Cold-water corals form reef habitats at temperate latitudes at intermediate water depths (down to c. 1000m water depth). Coral reef development is sensitive to changes in the ocean, climate and environment. Over 100s of thousands to millions of years, reefs form carbonate mounds that contain geological records of environmental change and are sinks for carbonate to the seabed.
Using deep-sea drilling techniques, CARBONATE will collect complete sequences (<80m long) through cold-water carbonate mounds in different environmental settings to:
- Develop mound initiation models
- Develop mound development models
- Study the interactions between reef development and environmental/climate change
- Extract records of palaeoenvironmental change in the deep ocean
- Quantify the volumes and rates of carbonate sequestration to the seafloor
- Start date
- 2007-6
- End date
- 2011-3