Glacial-aged development of the Tunisian Coral Mound Province controlled by glacio-eustatic oscillations and changes in surface productivity

A 300 000-year record of cold-water coral mound build-up at the East Melilla Coral Province (SE Alboran Sea, western Mediterranean)

“…The predominant occurrence of CWCs during interglacial periods noticed by Krengel (2020) in the EMCP is also observed during the last four interglacial-glacial cycles in the South Cabliers Mound Province, although mound build-up in the latter is the most important during deglacials and tem-perate interstadials (Corbera et al, 2021). In contrast, over the last 400 kyr, the Tunisian Coral Mound Province situated in the central Mediterranean experienced its most marked phase of coral development during the last glacial period, whereas interglacial periods were particularly scarce in coral occurrences (Corbera et al, 2022). These different temporal distributions suggest that mound build-up in the western and central Mediterranean Sea does not follow a uniform pattern.…”

“…In the South Cabliers Mound Province, Corbera et al (2021) identified four mound formation phases covering the last 400 kyr spread between MIS 9, 7, 6, and 5 at rates of 4, 5, 3.5, and 20 cm kyr −1 , respectively, whereas long-term mound build-up at the Tunisian Coral Mound Province in the central Mediterranean essentially took place during MIS 2 at rates of ca. 20 cm kyr −1 (Corbera et al, 2022). These different mound build-up phases were separated by periods of mound stagnation (Corbera et al, 2021(Corbera et al, , 2022.…”

“…20 cm kyr −1 (Corbera et al, 2022). These different mound build-up phases were separated by periods of mound stagnation (Corbera et al, 2021(Corbera et al, , 2022. The contrasting observations made at the Cabliers Mound Province, Tunisian Coral Mound Province, Dragon Mound, and BRI (Krengel, 2020;Corbera et al, 2021Corbera et al, , 2022 suggest that, together with local discrepancies at BRI, the timing of long-term mound build-up in the western and central Mediterranean is not concurrent and does not follow a clear interglacial-glacial pattern as in the North Atlantic (Dorschel et al, 2005;Rüggeberg et al, 2007;Frank et al, 2009Frank et al, , 2011Matos et al, 2015Matos et al, , 2017.…”

“…In the Mediterranean Sea, CWC mound provinces are concentrated in the Alboran Sea (Fink et al, 2013(Fink et al, , 2015Lo Iacono et al, 2014;Stalder et al, 2015Stalder et al, , 2018Terhzaz et al, 2018;Wang et al, 2019;Fentimen et al, 2020a;Rachid et al, 2020;Corbera et al, 2021;Sánchez-Guillamón et al, 2022), the Corsica Channel (Remia and Taviani, 2005;Angeletti et al, 2020), the Strait of Sicily (Martorelli et al, 2011), the northern Ionian Sea (Carlier et al, 2009;Freiwald et al, 2009), and on the Tunisian Plateau (Camafort et al, 2020;Corbera et al, 2022). Except for the North Cabliers Coral Mound Province situated in the central part of the eastern Alboran Sea (Fig.…”

“…These different temporal distributions suggest that mound build-up in the western and central Mediterranean Sea does not follow a uniform pattern. Although the development of coral communities at the EMCP during the last 30 kyr is well-documented and novel long-term records are emerging from the western and central Mediterranean Sea (Krengel, 2020;Corbera et al, 2021Corbera et al, , 2022, the long-term environmental forcing affecting the EMCP still remains little documented. The aims of this study are hence (1) to constrain the environmental parameters driving CWC mound formation in the EMCP over the last 300 kyr and (2) to assess the heterogeneities in long-term CWC mound formation within the western Mediterranean Sea.…”