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Illustration explaining how a Deep Hypersaline Anoxic Basin (DHAB) forms.

Illustration explaining how a Deep Hypersaline Anoxic Basin (DHAB) forms.
Illustration explaining how a Deep Hypersaline Anoxic Basin (DHAB) forms.
Illustration explaining how a Deep Hypersaline Anoxic Basin (DHAB) forms.
Illustration explaining how a Deep Hypersaline Anoxic Basin (DHAB) forms.
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261113
Cook, John E.
Illustration explaining how a Deep Hypersaline Anoxic Basin (DHAB) forms.
Illustration
04/18/2006
31.jpg
Reformatted to use as an Image Of the Day.
Caption from Oceanus magazine, vol. 50, no. 2, page 31:
DHABs form when salt from long-buried deposits reaches the seafloor and dissolves into the ocean. The resulting extra-salty, ultra-dense water does not mix with normal, less dense, oxygenated seawater above it and gets trapped in seafloor valleys. The interfaace is the zone between the two types of water.
Image Of the Day caption:
WHOI scientists Virginia Edgcomb and Joan Bernhard led a 2011 expedition in the Mediterranean to investigate one of earth's harshest environmentsDeep Hypersaline Anoxic Basins (DHABs). These seafloor depressions hold water that is low in oxygen and far denser, saltier, and chemically distinct from surrounding seawater. DHABs form when ancient, exposed salt deposits dissolve and the resulting ultra-dense water remains trapped in the basin. DHABs can even look like lakes on land, with "beaches" around their perimeter and a distinct surface. Bernhard, Edgcomb, and their collaborators sampled sediments and water at the interface zone and investigated organisms found in the samples.
Illustration by Jack Cook
© Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
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