caa a22 4500 445891823 CHVBK 20180317145618.0 cr unu---uuuuu 170323e20111101xx s 000 0 eng 10.1007/s10750-011-0883-1 doi (NATIONALLICENCE)springer-10.1007/s10750-011-0883-1 Search for Bermuda's deep water caves [Elektronische Daten] [Thomas Iliffe, Rikk Kvitek, Steve Blasco, Katie Blasco, Robert Covill] The mid-Atlantic islands of Bermuda harbor one of the richest and most diverse anchialine communities known from anywhere on Earth. However, all known anchialine caves in Bermuda (maximum depth—26m) were dry during the last glacial period extending from approximately 9,000 to 115,000years ago when glacial sea levels were as much as 127m lower. Since it is highly unlikely that Bermuda's endemic cave species evolved since the caves were flooded by sea level rise, alternate deeper habitats must have existed to shelter anchiane fauna for prolonged periods of lower sea level during the Pleistocene. In order to systematically search for such now deep water cave habitats, high-resolution multibeam sonar and remotely operated vehicles were used to map and explore the seafloor off Bermuda in 60-200m depths along the outer shelf break edge of the submarine escarpment surrounding the Bermuda Platform and an adjacent seamount. Specific goals were to discover deep water cave and/or crevicular habitats and to characterize the nature, geological stratification and composition, and sea level history of the platform margin, in particular focusing on features directly relating to Pleistocene low sea stand events. During this sea floor survey, clearly defined paleo-shoreline features generated by wave and current erosion were found to encircle the Bermuda seamount and Challenger Bank at 60 and 120m depths. Springer Science+Business Media B.V., 2011 Anchialine caves nationallicence Seafloor mapping nationallicence Pleistocene nationallicence Sea level nationallicence Iliffe Thomas Department of Marine Biology, Texas A&M University at Galveston, 77553-1675, Galveston, TX, USA aut Kvitek Rikk Seafloor Mapping Lab, California State University, Monterey Bay, 93955, Seaside, CA, USA aut Blasco Steve Geological Survey of Canada (Atlantic), 1 Challenger Drive, P.O. Box 1006, B2Y 4A2, Dartmouth, NS, Canada aut Blasco Katie Geological Survey of Canada (Atlantic), 1 Challenger Drive, P.O. Box 1006, B2Y 4A2, Dartmouth, NS, Canada aut Covill Robert Tekmap Consulting, P.O. Box 2016, B2T 1K6, Fall River, NS, Canada aut Hydrobiologia Springer Netherlands 677/1(2011-11-01), 157-168 0018-8158 677:1<157 2011 677 10750 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-011-0883-1 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-011-0883-1 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Iliffe Thomas Department of Marine Biology, Texas A&M University at Galveston, 77553-1675, Galveston, TX, USA aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Kvitek Rikk Seafloor Mapping Lab, California State University, Monterey Bay, 93955, Seaside, CA, USA aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Blasco Steve Geological Survey of Canada (Atlantic), 1 Challenger Drive, P.O. Box 1006, B2Y 4A2, Dartmouth, NS, Canada aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Blasco Katie Geological Survey of Canada (Atlantic), 1 Challenger Drive, P.O. Box 1006, B2Y 4A2, Dartmouth, NS, Canada aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Covill Robert Tekmap Consulting, P.O. Box 2016, B2T 1K6, Fall River, NS, Canada aut NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Hydrobiologia Springer Netherlands 677/1(2011-11-01), 157-168 0018-8158 677:1<157 2011 677 10750 Metadata rights reserved Springer special CC-BY-NC licence nationallicence BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-springer