Abstract
Concepcion Bank is the largest seamount in the Canary Islands Seamount Province (CISP), an oceanic area off NW Africa including 16 main seamounts, the Canaries archipelago and the Selvagens subarchipelago. The Bank is located 90 km northeast of Lanzarote Island and has been identified as a candidate Marine Protected Area (MPA) to be included in the Natura 2000 network. A compilation of complementary datasets consisting of multibeam bathymetry, TOPAS seismic reflection profiles, side scan sonar sonographs, Remotely Operated Vehicle video records and seafloor samples allowed describing in detail and ground truthing the submarine landforms and bioconstructions exhibited by the bank. The Concepcion Bank presently rises up to 2,433 m above the adjacent seafloor and exhibits two main domains: an extensive summit plateau and steep flanks. The sub-round summit plateau is 50km by 45 km and ranges from 158 to 1,485 m depth. The steep flanks that bound it descend to depths ranging between 1,700 and 2,500 m and define a seamount base that is 66km by 53 km. This morphology is the result of constructive and erosive processes involving different time scales, volumes of material and rates of change. The volcanic emplacement phase probably lasted 25–30 million years and was likely responsible for most of the 2,730 km3 of material that presently form the seamount. Subsequently, marine abrasion and, possibly, subaerial erosion modulated by global sea level oscillations, levelled the formerly emerging seamount summit plateau, in particular its shallower (<400 m), flatter (<0.5°) eastern half. Subsidence associated to the crustal cooling that followed the emplacement phase further contributed the current depth range of the seamount. The deeper and steeper (2.3°) western half of Concepcion Bank may result from tectonic tilting normal to a NNE-SSW fracture line. This fracture may still be expressed on the seafloor surface at some scarps detected on the seamount’s summit. Sediment waves and cold-water coral (CWC) mounds on the bank summit plateau are the youngest features contributing to its final shaping, and may be indicative of internal wave effects. Numerous submarine canyons generally less than 10 km in length are incised on the bank’s flanks. The most developed, hierarchized canyon system runs southwest of the bank, where it merges with other canyons coming from the southern bulges attached to some sections of the seamount flanks. These bulges are postulated as having an intrusive origin, as no major headwall landslide scars have been detected and their role as deposition areas for the submarine canyons seems to be minor. The results presented document how geological processes in the past and recent to subrecent oceanographic conditions and associated active processes determined the current physiography, morphology and sedimentary patterns of Concepcion Bank, including the development and decline of CWC mounds The setting of the seamount in the regional crustal structure is also discussed.
Highlights
Seamounts are classically viewed as “isolated seafloor features”, whose ecological and geological relevance is nowadays widely recognised (e.g. [1,2,3])
With an age of 18 million years (Ma), an overall volume of 2,730 km3 and a basal area of 2,508 km2, Concepcion Bank is the largest seamount in the 400 km long Canary Ridge
It stands above the continental rise of NW Africa and is dominated by a westwards tilted large summit plateau delimited by abrupt flanks leading to a surrounding deeper area
Summary
Seamounts are classically viewed as “isolated seafloor features”, whose ecological and geological relevance is nowadays widely recognised (e.g. [1,2,3]). Seamounts are classically viewed as “isolated seafloor features”, whose ecological and geological relevance is nowadays widely recognised Seamounts often represent a sort of “island” or “seafloor nunataks” bringing heterogeneity to vast, uniform ocean expanses. As such they have been shown to have an effect on biodiversity, including living resources, and ocean circulation [4,5,6,7]. Amongst other seafloor isolated positive relieves, which are more subdued or lower in height such as hills or knolls, strictly speaking a seamount is “an elevation of the seafloor, 1,000 m or higher, either flat-topped (called a guyot or table mount) or peaked (called a seapeak)” [9]. Seamounts may be either discrete, arranged in a linear or random grouping, or connected at their bases and aligned along a ridge or rise [10]
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