Last glacial deep-water corals from the Red Sea

Marco Taviani; Matthias López Correa; Helmut Zibrowius; Paolo Montagna; Malcom McCulloch; Marco Ligi

Last glacial deep-water corals from the Red Sea

Marco Taviani^*, Matthias López Correa, Helmut Zibrowius, Paolo Montagna, Malcom McCulloch, Marco Ligi

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

11 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The present Red Sea deep-sea benthos appears impoverished with respect to the adjacent Indian mother-ocean as a result of severe filters, represented by an extremely shallow sill, high salinity, and high temperature. Today, the Red Sea basin hosts a still poorly known deep-water coral fauna of Indian Ocean affinity. During the Pleistocene, conditions were at times suitable as proven by the findings of last glacial corals (Javania insignis Duncan, 1876, and Trochocyathus virgatus sensu Marenzeller, 1907 (not Alcock, 1902), and, possibly, Guynia annulata Duncan, 1872) from seamounts in the north-central part of the basin. A subfossil J. insignis from the Coral Sea peak has been U-series-dated at 26,590 ± 120 yrs. This represents the first documentation regarding the presence of deep-water corals in the Red Sea during the late Pleistocene and predates the postulated basin-wide extinction of normal marine biota that took place at the Last Glacial Maximum.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	361-370
Number of pages	10
Journal	Bulletin of Marine Science
Volume	81
Issue number	3
Publication status	Published - Nov 2007

Cite this

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title = "Last glacial deep-water corals from the Red Sea",

abstract = "The present Red Sea deep-sea benthos appears impoverished with respect to the adjacent Indian mother-ocean as a result of severe filters, represented by an extremely shallow sill, high salinity, and high temperature. Today, the Red Sea basin hosts a still poorly known deep-water coral fauna of Indian Ocean affinity. During the Pleistocene, conditions were at times suitable as proven by the findings of last glacial corals (Javania insignis Duncan, 1876, and Trochocyathus virgatus sensu Marenzeller, 1907 (not Alcock, 1902), and, possibly, Guynia annulata Duncan, 1872) from seamounts in the north-central part of the basin. A subfossil J. insignis from the Coral Sea peak has been U-series-dated at 26,590 ± 120 yrs. This represents the first documentation regarding the presence of deep-water corals in the Red Sea during the late Pleistocene and predates the postulated basin-wide extinction of normal marine biota that took place at the Last Glacial Maximum.",

author = "Marco Taviani and {L{\'o}pez Correa}, Matthias and Helmut Zibrowius and Paolo Montagna and Malcom McCulloch and Marco Ligi",

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T1 - Last glacial deep-water corals from the Red Sea

AU - Taviani, Marco

AU - López Correa, Matthias

AU - Zibrowius, Helmut

AU - Montagna, Paolo

AU - McCulloch, Malcom

AU - Ligi, Marco

PY - 2007/11

Y1 - 2007/11

N2 - The present Red Sea deep-sea benthos appears impoverished with respect to the adjacent Indian mother-ocean as a result of severe filters, represented by an extremely shallow sill, high salinity, and high temperature. Today, the Red Sea basin hosts a still poorly known deep-water coral fauna of Indian Ocean affinity. During the Pleistocene, conditions were at times suitable as proven by the findings of last glacial corals (Javania insignis Duncan, 1876, and Trochocyathus virgatus sensu Marenzeller, 1907 (not Alcock, 1902), and, possibly, Guynia annulata Duncan, 1872) from seamounts in the north-central part of the basin. A subfossil J. insignis from the Coral Sea peak has been U-series-dated at 26,590 ± 120 yrs. This represents the first documentation regarding the presence of deep-water corals in the Red Sea during the late Pleistocene and predates the postulated basin-wide extinction of normal marine biota that took place at the Last Glacial Maximum.

AB - The present Red Sea deep-sea benthos appears impoverished with respect to the adjacent Indian mother-ocean as a result of severe filters, represented by an extremely shallow sill, high salinity, and high temperature. Today, the Red Sea basin hosts a still poorly known deep-water coral fauna of Indian Ocean affinity. During the Pleistocene, conditions were at times suitable as proven by the findings of last glacial corals (Javania insignis Duncan, 1876, and Trochocyathus virgatus sensu Marenzeller, 1907 (not Alcock, 1902), and, possibly, Guynia annulata Duncan, 1872) from seamounts in the north-central part of the basin. A subfossil J. insignis from the Coral Sea peak has been U-series-dated at 26,590 ± 120 yrs. This represents the first documentation regarding the presence of deep-water corals in the Red Sea during the late Pleistocene and predates the postulated basin-wide extinction of normal marine biota that took place at the Last Glacial Maximum.

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M3 - Article

SN - 0007-4977

VL - 81

SP - 361

EP - 370

JO - Bulletin of Marine Science

JF - Bulletin of Marine Science

IS - 3

ER -

Last glacial deep-water corals from the Red Sea

Abstract

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