The Romanche Fracture Zone is a prominent geological feature known as a transform fault, which offsets the line of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge axis by about 900 km – the largest such offset in the Atlantic. The fracture zone manifests at the seafloor as long and deep valley reaching 7,000 m water depth, which acts as the main conduit for the flow of deep water masses between the North and South Atlantic basins. Seafloor habitats are shaped by the crests and ridges that flank the valley, but also include flatter sediment-covered areas and gentle slopes. These habitats are influenced by a high flux of organic matter from phytoplankton blooms caused by seasonal equatorial upwelling. Such high productivity in the middle of the vast oligotrophic (nutrient-poor) zones of the subtropical north and south Atlantic is thought to have an ‘oasis’ effect, enhancing abundance and diversity of marine life in and around the Romanche Fracture Zone. As such, it has been identified as an Ecologically an...

Boundary of the iAtlantic study region: 7. Equatorial Atlantic, Romanche Fracture Zone

Following some suggestion the Region #7 boundary was slightly enlarged in the NW and SE corners to better encompass the proposed APEI.UNIVALI noted that an E...