Abstract
Subsea hypersaline anoxic brine pools are among the most extreme habitable environments on Earth that offer clues to life on other planets. Brine is toxic to macrofauna as remotely operated vehicles commonly observe dead and preserved remains in brine pools. While brine pools are often assumed to be stable stratified systems, we show that underwater landslides can cause significant disturbances. Moreover, landslides create large-amplitude waves upon impact with the brine pool, similar to tsunami waves. We focus on the Orca Basin brine pool in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico, which contains numerous landslide deposits and blocks that originated from scarps several hundred meters above the brine pool. The impact of massive fast-moving landslides generated waves with amplitude on the order of 100 s of meters, which rival the largest known ocean waves. Brine waves can negatively affect biological communities and potentially overspill to spread hypersaline brine into surrounding basins.
Highlights
Deep sea brine pools originate primarily in two ways: from dissolution and upward seepage of near-seafloor salt bodies[20,21] or from dissolution of seafloor-outcropping salt bodies[22] in which the brine, will flow downslope and pool in topographic lows[23]
We consider the impacts of submarine landslides striking a brine pool which, are larger and denser than turbidity currents
We describe submarine landslides and their interactions with the Orca Basin brine pool, which is one of the largest submarine brine pools on Earth
Summary
Deep sea brine pools originate primarily in two ways: from dissolution and upward seepage of near-seafloor salt bodies[20,21] or from dissolution of seafloor-outcropping salt bodies[22] in which the brine, will flow downslope and pool in topographic lows[23]. Orca Basin is well known for the large (123 km2) anoxic hypersaline brine pool occurring at the bottom of the basin[8]. Landslide headscarps occur all along the basin periphery, hundreds of meters above the brine pool elevation (Fig. 1).
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