The deep-sea environment of the African equatorial margin was almost unknown before the recent exploration for oil in deep waters. Ifremer and Total initiated an integrated program with a long term strategy, which aims at analysing, at local and regional scales, the influence of environmental factors on benthic communities on six selected sites ranging from 400 m to 4000 m depth.
The objectives are:
- To obtain species composition with the contribution of taxonomists.
- To evaluate the variability of the community structure together with physical and chemical characteristics at the water-sediment interface, including trophic resources (pelagic/terrigeneous inputs and chemosynthesis).
- To characterize communities associated with pockmarks and methane-rich fluids.
- To undertake long term in situ experiments for colonization studies.
During the course of the projects and its seven cruises onboard Ifremer Research Vessels, ROV dives allowed to explore and sample deep coral mounds, gas hydrate outcrops and bubbles of gas rising in a large cold seep field, exceptionally rich chemosynthesis-based communities and a great variability in the colonization of pockmarks. The presence, near the Zaïre canyon, of isolated living organisms, indicators of reduced environment, suggest diffusive and long term influence of the arrival and transformation of organic matter driven by the channel. Moreover, a turbiditic event observed in the channel had consequences relatively far from the canyon in terms of organic matter, and , in turn, on the benthic community.
Photos and videos of the Biozaire program in the Public Area
