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Fabio Trincardi, ISMAR-CNR (Italy)
Marco Taviani, ISMAR-CNR (Italy)
André Freiwald, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg (Germany)
Federica Foglini, ISMAR-CNR (Italy)
Giuseppe Verdicchio, Edison S.p.A. (Italy)
Daniel Minisini, ENI (Italy)
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The SW Adriatic continental margin is characterized by intense slope instability from the shelf edge to the slope base over a margin sector ca. 150 km long. Failure of consolidated Pleistocene sedimentary units generates deposits ranging from blocky slides to fine-grained turbidites, impinging both the open slope and the steep walls of Bari canyon. The margin is also affected by the seasonal action of dense water cascading off shelf and reaching speeds exceeding 60 cm sec-1 close to the seafloor. This combination of phenomena caused a variety of bedforms some of which (for instance hardened surfaces of slumped blocks) proves to have been propitious to the settlement of a variety of benthic hard-bottom organisms. The coupling of such slump-induced reliefs with the formation and cascading of cold and nutrient-rich water sustains a diverse deep-sea community of filter- and suspension-feeders dominated by frame-building scleractinian corals (Lophelia pertusa, Madrepora oculata, Desmophyllum dianthus, Caryophyllia spp., Dendrophyllia spp.), sponges, gorgonaceans, serpulid polychaetes and other benthic megafauna. In turn, these lush Adriatic ecosystems probably control dispersal and colonization patterns of far-distant deep-water coral growth in the Ionian Sea and have a role in contributing to a trophic web that includes fish and crustacean stocks of commercial value.
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