title: Chemosynthetic mussels at a brine-filled pockmark in the northern gulf of Mexico.
abstract: 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.
authors.forename: I R
authors.initials: IR
authors.lastname: Macdonald
authors.forename: J F
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Reilly
authors.forename: N L
authors.initials: NL
authors.lastname: Guinasso
authors.forename: J M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Brooks
authors.forename: R S
authors.initials: RS
authors.lastname: Carney
authors.forename: W A
authors.initials: WA
authors.lastname: Bryant
authors.forename: T J
authors.initials: TJ
authors.lastname: Bright