Lau Basin Vent Expeditions 2005-6

Podowski Elizabeth1, Kevin Mackay2, Kevin Mackay3

1 Pennsylvania State University, PA 16802, , United States; 2 NIWA, Private Bag 14-901, 6241, , New Zealand; 3 

Corresponding author(s): Podowski Elizabeth, Kevin Mackay

Received {date}; Revised {date}; Accepted {date}; Published {date}

Citation: Combination of authors, year of data paper publication (in parentheses), Title, Journal Name, Volume, Issue number (in parentheses), and doi of the data paper.

Resource Citation

Elizabeth P (2018): Lau Basin Vent Expeditions 2005-6. v1.0. Southwestern Pacific Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS) Node. Dataset/Occurrence. https://nzobisipt.niwa.co.nz/resource?r=dwca-r2k_lau&v=1.0

Abstract

Deep-sea vents are remote, ephemeral environments with large gradients in chemistry and temperature over very small distances. Hydrothermal vent fauna are reliant upon the productivity associated with vent flow and require special adaptations in order to tolerate the variety of challenges posed by potentially toxic chemicals and a wide range of temperatures. Thus, characterizing the habitats of the fauna is a criti.cal first step in understanding their ecology, but can be quite difficult and time consuming in these complex, remote, and relatively inaccessible environments.
The 400 km-long Eastern Lau Spreading Center (ELSC) is located in the Lau back-arc basin, bordered on the west by the remnant Lau arc and on the east by the active Tofua volcanic arc and the Kingdom of Tonga. Lau Basin fauna are generally similar to that of other back-arc basins and deep subduction zones (Manus and North Fiji Basins and Okinawa and Mariana Troughs) within the Western Pacific hydrothermal vent biogeographic province.
In 2005 and 2006, we selected four discrete vent communities within three different andesite-hosted vent fields along the ELSC (ABE, Tu’i Malila, Kilo Moana and Tow Cam) and used the ROV JASON II to photographically and physico-chemically characterize each community. One purpose of this study was to develop an explorative technique that combines high-resolution, geographically referenced imagery, in-situ physico-chemical measurements (Luther et al., 2001; Nuzzio et al., 2002), and GIS in order to identify correlations between faunal distributions and abiotic and biotic factors across significant portions of a vent community (40–50 m2).

Keywords: Occurrence, Observation

General description

Additional information: marine, harvested by iOBIS

Data published through GBIF: https://nzobisipt.niwa.co.nz/resource?r=dwca-r2k_lau

Spatial coverage

General spatial coverage: Lau Basin
Coordinates: 21°59'21.1''S and 20°3'9.6''S Latitude; 176°34'5.82''W and 176°8'1.92''W Longitude 

Temporal coverage: June 9, 2005 - October 2, 2006

Datasets

Dataset description
Object name: Darwin Core Archive Lau Basin Vent Expeditions 2005-6
Character encoding: UTF-8
Format name: Darwin Core Archive format
Format version: 1.0
Distribution: https://nzobisipt.niwa.co.nz/archive.do?r=dwca-r2k_lau
Publication date of data: 2018-11-13
Language: English
Licences of use: Public Domain (CC0 1.0)

Metadata language: English
Date of metadata creation: 2018-11-13
Hierarchy level: Dataset

References
Podowski, E.L. et al. (2009) Distribution of diffuse flow megafauna in two sites on the Eastern Lau Spreading Center, Tonga. Deep-Sea Research I 56: 2041-2056.  doi:10.1016/j.dsr.2009.07.00
Podowski, E.L. et al. (2010) Biotic and abiotic factors affecting distributions of megafauna in diffuse flow on andesite and basalt along the Eastern Lau Spreading Center, Tonga. Mar Ecol Prog Ser 418: 25-45.  doi:10.3354/meps08797