Massive asphalt deposits, oil seepage, and gas venting support abundant
chemosynthetic communities at the Campeche Knolls, southern Gulf of Mexico

Sahling, Heiko; Borowski, Christian; Escobar-Briones, Elva; Gaytán-Caballero, Adriana; Hsu, Chieh-Wei; Loher, Markus; MacDonald, Ian; Marcon, Yann; Pape, Thomas; Römer, Miriam; Rubin-Blum, Maxim; Schubotz, Florence; Smrzka, Daniel; Wegener, Gunter; Bohrmann, Gerhard

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-13-4491-2016

Articles | Volume 13, issue 15

Biogeosciences, 13, 4491–4512, 2016

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-13-4491-2016

© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Biogeosciences, 13, 4491–4512, 2016

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-13-4491-2016

© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 13, issue 15

Research article 11 Aug 2016

Research article | 11 Aug 2016

Massive asphalt deposits, oil seepage, and gas venting support abundant chemosynthetic communities at the Campeche Knolls, southern Gulf of Mexico

Heiko Sahling et al.

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-13-4491-2016-supplement

Data sets

Seafloor images along 9 ROV profiles H. Sahling and G. Bohrmann https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.860373

Short summary

We were excited about nature’s diversity when we discovered spectacular flows of heavy oil at the seafloor with the remotely operated vehicle QUEST 4000 m in Campeche Bay, southern Gulf of Mexico. Vigorous methane gas bubble emissions lead to massive gas hydrate deposits at water depth as deep as 3420 m. The hydrates formed metre-sized mounds at the seafloor that were densely overgrown by vestimentiferan tubeworms and other seep-typical organisms.