Cold corals. Review of traditional concepts about these organisms
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Abstract
According to updated scientific information, coral formations are not only found in tropical shallow waters, but also in cold waters of different depths and latitudes. The objective of this work is to deal with the specific conditions in which they develop, according to the results of published reports and their discovery in the Cuban exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in the Gulf of Mexico. They are found in an aphotic environment, at atmospheric pressure up to more than 5 t/cm2, low oxygenation and temperatures up to about 0˚C. Other conditions may be gas emanations, exploited by corals for their nutrition and the construction of a hard substrate for their settlement, through the oxidation of methane thanks to their symbiosis with chemosynthetic bacteria. They inhabit almost all the seas and oceans of the world. In the Cuban EEZ they were discovered at a depth of more than 1500 m, with evidence of gas emanations. The importance from the geological point of view of cold corals lies in: 1) their relationship with gas emanations, being an indication for the prospection of gas hydrates, with volumes of methane gas, estimated between 2.1 x 1016 and 4 x 1016 m3, almost twice the total world commercial methane (2.5 x 1014 m3 ) and carbon equivalent to all known deposits of fossil fuels and 2) they break with the rule of associating the presence of corals, exclusively, with requirements for their development typical of tropical neritic seas.
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