Microbial perspective on the giant carbonate ridge Alpha Crucis (Southwestern Atlantic upper slope).

Deep-sea carbonate mounds can harbor a wide variety of heterotrophic and chemosynthetic microbial communities, providing biodiversity hotspots among the deep-sea benthic ecosystems. This study examined the bacterial and archaeal diversity and community structure in the water column and sediments associated with a recently described giant carbonate mound named Alpha Crucis Carbonate Ridge (ACCR), located in the Southwestern Atlantic Ocean. Because of the acoustic evidence of gas chimneys from a previous study, we further evaluated the chemosynthetic primary production through in situ-simulated dark carbon fixation rates.

Deep-sea plastisphere: Long-term colonization by plastic-associated bacterial and archaeal communities in the Southwest Atlantic Ocean.

Marine plastic pollution is a global concern because of continuous release into the oceans over the last several decades. Although recent studies have made efforts to characterize the so-called plastisphere, or microbial community inhabiting plastic substrates, it is not clear whether the plastisphere is defined as a core community or as a random attachment of microbial cells. Likewise, little is known about the influence of the deep-sea environment on the plastisphere.

The Alpha Crucis Carbonate Ridge (ACCR): Discovery of a giant ring-shaped carbonate complex on the SW Atlantic margin.

Recently acquired bathymetric and high-resolution seismic data from the upper slope of Santos Basin, southern Brazilian margin, reveal a major geomorphological feature in the SW Atlantic that is interpreted as a carbonate ridge - the Alpha Crucis Carbonate Ridge (ACCR). The ACCR is the first megastructure of this type described on the SW Atlantic margin. The ~17 × 11-km-wide ring-shaped ACCR features tens of >100-m-high steep-sided carbonate mounds protruding from the surrounding seabed and flanked by elongated depressions.

A new gastropod associated with a deep-sea whale carcass from São Paulo Ridge, Southwest Atlantic.

An unfamiliar gastropod was collected from a deep-sea whale carcass at the base of the São Paulo Ridge in the Southwest Atlantic by the manned research submersible Shinkai 6500, and is here described as a new species of the abyssochrysoidean genus Rubyspira, R. brasiliensis sp. nov.

An extensive pockmark field on the upper Atlantic margin of Southeast Brazil: spatial analysis and its relationship with salt diapirism.

We present new evidence for the existence of a large pockmark field on the continental slope of the Santos Basin, offshore southeast Brazil. A recent high-resolution multibeam bathymetric survey revealed 984 pockmarks across a smooth seabed at water depths of 300-700 m. Four patterns of pockmark arrays were identified in the data: linear, network, concentric, and radial.