Programme: Progetto di Rilevante Interesse Nazionale – PRIN 2022
Project title: To the CORe of the SUBstrate: inception and development of Mediterranean algal reefs
Acronym: CORSUB
Duration: 29/09/2023 – 28/09/2025
Project budget: € 236,539.50
ISMAR budget: € 53,990.00
Web site: https://corsub.disat.unimib.it/home-page
Summary: CORSUB project aims at the study of the inception and development of anomalous morphologies of unknown origin, found between 80 and 130 m of water depth offshore the Punta Licosa Promontory (Tyrrhenian Sea, Campania, Italy), in correspondence of deep submarine terraces ascribed to Late Upper Pleistocene. Here, groups of metrical sub-circular structures of unknown origin (and with no similar record in the literature) were identified during a survey in 2003 and never successively investigated. They are possibly related to the presence of bioconstructions, because grab samples contained living crustose coralline algae, even though they never clarified the occurrence of true biogenic framework, nor the reason for such unique shapes. These findings lead to the suspicion that deep bioconstruction, possibly coralligenous, occurs, designed by past Quaternary underwater topography of unknown origin. The study area represents a worthy opportunity where to explore the nature of this potential deep coralligenous, integrating geophysical, stratigraphical, sedimentological and paleontological techniques to reconstruct the inception of this kind of framework and its development through time, under different possible phases of climate and environment during the Quaternary.
Contact person in ISMAR: Valentina Grande (Research Unit Leader), valentina.grande@cnr.it
Partnership: CNR-ISMAR, University of Milano-Bicocca
