Geomorphological characteristics, percentage cover of live coral, mound and live coral delineation and predictive map of likelihood of live coral at the Mingulay Reef Complex coral
2019
De Clippele, Laurence Helene | Gafeira, Joanna | Robert, Katleen | Hennige, Sebastian | Lavaleye, Marc | Duineveld, Gerard C A | Huvenne, Veerle A I | Roberts, J Murray
The data provided here were derived using a new ArcGIS-based British Geological Survey (BGS) seabed mapping toolbox that semi-automatically delineated over 500 Lophelia reef 'minimounds' from bathymetry data of the Mingulay Reef Complex. The morphometric and acoustic characteristics of the minimounds were also automatically quantified and captured using this toolbox. Coral presence data were derived from high-definition remotely operated vehicle (ROV) records and high-resolution microbathymetry collected by a ROVmounted multibeam echosounder. With a resolution of 0.35 9 0.35 m, the microbathymetry covers 0.6 km2 in the centre of the study area and allowed identification of individual live coral colonies in acoustic data for the first time. Maximum water depth, maximum rugosity, mean rugosity, bathymetric positioning index and maximum current speed were identified as the environmental variables that contributed most to the prediction of live coral presence. These variables were used to create a predictive map of the likelihood of presence of live cold-water coral colonies in the area of the Mingulay Reef Complex covered by the 2-m resolution data set.
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