Morten Bjerager

Cold water coral mounds revealed

The discovery of mounds and reefs hosting cold-water coral ecosystems along the northeastern Atlantic continental margins has propelled a vigorous effort over the past decade to study the distribution of the mounds, surface sediments, the ecosystems they host, and their environments [Hovland et al., 1994; Freiwald and Roberts, 2005].This effort has involved swath bathymetry, remotely operated vehicle deployments, shallow coring, and seismic surveys. Global coverage is difficult to gauge, but studies indicate that cold-water corals may cover as large an area as the better known warm-water corals that form shallow reefs (284,300 square kilometers) [Freiwald et al., 2005]. Cold-water corals occur in a variety of forms and settings, from small isolated colonies or patch reefs to giant mound structures such as those found west of Ireland.

Ammonoid stratigraphy and sedimentary evolution across the Permian–Triassic boundary in East Greenland

East Greenland is a classical area for the study of the Permian–Triassic transition and the succession is one of the most expanded in the world. New ammonoid data from the Wordie Creek Formation have allowed us to better reconstruct the history of the East Greenland basin from semi-isolated basins with an endemic fauna during latest Permian–earliest Triassic H. triviale – H. martini zones time to well-connected open marine shelf basins during the Early Triassic M. subdemissum , O. commune , W. decipiens and B. rosenkrantzi Zone times. The East Greenland zonation can be correlated with Boreal zonations in Arctic Canada, Svalbard and northeastern Asia. It allows precise relative dating and correlation of important events across the Permian–Triassic boundary. The new ammonoid data indicate that deposition was continuous across the Permian–Triassic boundary and developed as a marine mudstone–mudstone contact in basinal areas of Hold With Hope, northern and southern Jameson Land. Correlation of the ammonoid stratigraphy with the FAD of Hindeodus parvus , which defines the base of the Triassic in Global Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP) in Meishan, China, suggests that the Hypophiceras triviale Zone is to be referred to the uppermost Permian, whereas the H. martini Zone is lowermost Triassic. Accordingly, the end-Permian marine and terrestrial extinctions and associated isotope changes as well as the subsequent adaptive radiations in East Greenland took place in latest Permian time. New Boreal faunas and floras were well established and diversified in the Hypophiceras triviale Zone prior to the beginning of the Triassic, and the Permian–Triassic boundary, in its present definition, is no longer reflecting major changes in the Earth system. It would have been fortunate if a GSSP were defined in a protracted section at a point of major environmental perturbations, marked by isotope excursions, chemical anomalies and mass extinction, rather than in the strongly condensed section like Meishan at a point which post-dates all significant events.

An overview of the Upper Palaeozoic–Mesozoic stratigraphy of the NE Atlantic region

Abstract This study describes the distribution and stratigraphic range of the Upper Palaeozoic–Mesozoic succession in the NE Atlantic region, and is correlated between conjugate margins and along the axis of the NE Atlantic rift system. The stratigraphic framework has yielded important new constraints on the timing and nature of sedimentary basin development in the NE Atlantic, with implications for rifting and the break-up of the Pangaean supercontinent. From a regional perspective, the Permian–Triassic succession records a northwards transition from an arid interior to a passively subsiding, mixed carbonate–siliciclastic shelf margin. A Late Permian–earliest Triassic rift pulse has regional expression in the stratigraphic record. A fragmentary paralic to shallow-marine Lower Jurassic succession reflects Early Jurassic thermal subsidence and mild extensional tectonism; this was interrupted by widespread Mid-Jurassic uplift and erosion, and followed by an intense phase of Late Jurassic rifting in some (but not all) parts of the NE Atlantic region. The Cretaceous succession is dominated by thick basinal-marine deposits, which accumulated within and along a broad zone of extension and subsidence between Rockall and NE Greenland. There is no evidence for a substantive and continuous rift system along the proto-NE Atlantic until the Late Cretaceous.