Pockmarks, a paleo fluid efflux event, glacial meltwater channels, sponge colonies, and trawling impacts in Emerald Basin, Scotian Shelf: autonomous underwater vehicle surveys, William Kennedy 2022001 cruise report

Abstract

A short but productive cruise aboard RV William Kennedy tested various new field equipment near Halifax (port of departure and return) but also in areas that could also benefit science understanding. The GSC-A Gavia Autonomous Underwater Vehicle equipped with bathymetric, sidescan and sub-bottom profiler was successfully deployed for the first time on Scotian Shelf science targets. It surveyed three small areas: two across known benthic sponge, Vazella (Russian Hat) within a DFO-directed trawling closure area on the SE flank of Sambro Bank, bordering Emerald Basin, and one across known pockmarks, eroded cone-shaped depression in soft mud due to fluid efflux. The sponge study sites (~ 150 170 m water depth) were known to lie in an area of till (subglacial diamict) exposure at the seabed. The AUV data identified gravel and cobble-rich seabed, registering individual clasts at 35 cm gridded resolution. A subtle variation in seabed texture is recognized in sidescan images, from cobble-rich on ridge crests and flanks, to limited mud-rich sediment in intervening troughs. Correlation between seabed topography and texture with the (previously collected) Vazella distribution along two transects is not straightforward. However there may be a preference for the sponge in the depressions, some of which have a thin but possibly ephemeral sediment cover. Both sponge study sites depict a hereto unknown morphology, carved in glacial deposits, consisting of a series of discontinuous ridges interpreted to be generated by erosion in multiple, continuous, meandering and cross-cutting channels. The morphology is identical to glacial Nye, or mp;lt;"N-mp;lt;"channels, cut by sub-glacial meltwater. However their scale (10 to 100 times mp;lt;"typicalmp;gt;" N-channels) and the unique eroded medium, (till rather than bedrock), presents a rare or unknown size and medium and suggests a continuum in sub-glacial meltwater channels between much larger tunnel valleys, common to the eastward, and the bedrock forms. A comparison is made with coastal Nova Scotia forms in bedrock. The Emerald Basin AUV site, targeting pockmarks was in ~260 to 270 m water depth and imaged eight large and one small pockmark. The main aim was to investigate possible recent or continuous fluid flux activity in light of ocean acidification or greenhouse gas contribution; most accounts to date suggested inactivity. While a lack of common attributes marking activity is confirmed, creep or rotational flank failure is recognized, as is a depletion of buried diffuse methane immediately below the seabed features. Discovery of a second, buried, pockmark horizon, with smaller but more numerous erosive cones and no spatial correlation to the buried diffuse gas or the seabed pockmarks, indicates a paleo-event of fluid or gas efflux; general timing and possible mechanisms are suggested. The basinal survey also registered numerous otter board trawl marks cutting the surficial mud from past fishing activity. The AUV data present a unique dataset for follow-up quantification of the disturbance. Recent realization that this may play a significant role in ocean acidification on a global scale can benefit from such disturbance quantification. The new pole-mounted sub-bottom profiler collected high quality data, enabling correlation of recently recognized till ridges exposed at the seabed as they become buried across the flank and base of the basin. These, along with the Nye channels, will help reconstruct glacial behavior and flow patterns which to date are only vaguely documented. Several cores provide the potential for stratigraphic dating of key horizons and will augment Holocene environmental history investigations by a Dalhousie University student. In summary, several unique features have been identified, providing sufficient field data for further compilation, analysis and follow-up publications.