Geological faulting a possible trigger for brine-induced reef mortality at East Flower Garden Bank, NW Gulf of Mexico
Localized mortality within reef crest depressions in Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary in 2016 may have resulted from inundation by brine that erupted when reef rock collapsed into a solution cavern in the salt dome below the bank. This mechanism offers an alternative explanation
of mortality that has previously been attributed to hypoxia caused by either offshore movement of brackish, organically rich flood waters, upwelling, or both. Faults at the mortality site, discovered previously, and field observations of water conditions and mortality patterns during the event
suggest that salt dissolution, undermining, and collapse may have driven a brine eruption. Elsewhere on the bank, anoxic, sulfurous brine flows have been found adjacent to areas of seafloor collapse, producing localized, brine-induced stress and mortality, but evidence of acute, lethal brine
eruptions caused by active faulting would be novel for this system.
Document Type: Regular Paper
Affiliations: 1: 723 Less Traveled Road, Sagle, Idaho 2: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Office of National Marine Sanctuaries, 1315 East West Hwy., Silver Spring, Maryland;, Email: [email protected]
Publication date: 01 January 2023
This article was made available online on 18 November 2022 as a Fast Track article with title: "Geological faulting a possible trigger for brine-induced reef mortality at East Flower Garden Bank, NW Gulf of Mexico".
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