CHEMOSYNTHETIC MUSSELS AT A BRINE-FILLED POCKMARK IN THE NORTHERN GULF OF MEXICO

A large (540 square meters) bed of Bathymodiolus n. sp. (Mytilidae: Bivalvia) rings a pool of hypersaline (121.35 practical salinity units) brine at a water depth of 650 meters on the continental slope south of Louisiana. The anoxic brine (dissolved oxygen ≤0.17 milliliters per liter) contains high concentrations of methane, which nourishes methanotrophic symbionts in the mussels. The brine, which originates from a salt-cored diapir that penetrates to within 500 meters ofthe sea floor, fills a depression that was evidently excavated by escaping gas. The spatial continuity of the mussel bed indicates that the brine level has remained fairly constant; however, demographic differences between the inner and outer parts of the bed record small fluctuations.