Programme des sessions > Recherche par auteur > Casalbore Daniele

Pockmarks are seafloor depressions generated by fluid flow and escape processes and they represent some of the most widespread morphologies in both upper and lower continental slope environments. However, a major gap persisted in their recognition and quantitative analysis in deep-sea settings, mainly due to the limited resolution of available morphobathymetric data. For the first time, within the framework of the PNRR Marine Ecosystem Restoration (MER) project led by ISPRA, Italian seamounts have been systematically mapped at high resolution using multibeam echosounder and sub-bottom profiler data. This unprecedented dataset reveals a seafloor densely marked by pockmarks showing a remarkable diversity of shapes and sizes, ranging from small unit pockmarks (~10 m) to giant forms (up to 500 m) and, in some cases, mega-pockmarks (km scale). Pockmarks occurred not only in volcanic seamounts but are also frequent in those of non-volcanic origin. In both geological settings, pockmarks frequently appear in clusters or as strings aligned along local to regional tectonic trends, suggesting a strong structural control on fluid flow corridor and pockmark location. In some seamounts, a strong spatial correlation is observed between pockmarks and submarine landslides, with cases where the entire headscarp is rimmed by pockmarks, highlighting a close genetic link between the two geological processes. Among the studied examples, several pockmarks are associated with significant acoustic anomalies in the water column (flares), pointing to ongoing degassing processes and confirming their present-day activity. As widely recognized in the literature, pockmarks especially when active can represent important hotspots of biodiversity therefore, the identification of these deep-sea pockmarks opens the way to major geological and ecological investigations.