1 that's because of the Eocene chalk cliffs. They were just covered with 



2 . this organism. 



3 Then, the Desmophi'Tum cn'stigalae and the Perimuricia grandis 



4 dominated down in the bottom of the axis. Basically what you had on 



5 Corsair wall was you had a little bit of Asbestopluma up at the top, but 



6 then you got Unephthia florida and they inhabited glacial erratics on 



7 the upper wall of Corsair Canyon. 



8 Then you went into Acanilla arbuscula, which is similar to here. 



9 Then when you got into the Anthomastus grandifloris, you had a lot of 



10 Penatula grandis in addition, and then you had some Unephthia florida on 



11 the hard substrate. You went back into Acanilla and then you were 



12 basically into the Distichopilum versilli. 



13 One thing that is interesting about the status is that if you look 



14 at the Ophiomusium areas, you notice that they go very shallow in Heezen 



15 Canyon. 



16 We found the same sort of pattern out on the slope and we feel 



17 that what may be allowing Ophiomusium to go further up on the slope is 



18 that what you've got is a lot of outcrop here and you have a very 



19 heterogeneous environment and we feel that that may be affording 



20 Ophiomusium protection from predators. 



21 Out on the open slope, it does not extend up the slope, it will 



22 only extend up onto the middle slope and areas where we have a lot of 



23 hard substrate. 



24 Basically in conclusion I would like to say the faunal densities 



25 in general are higher in canyons that on the slope, the distribution of 



26 the megafauna in Georges Bank canyons is very complex with a high degree 



27 of patchiness in many of the faunal constituents. 



28 In addition to that, most of the canyon fauna is dominated by 



29 sessile filter feeders, be they hard or soft substrate organisms, but 



30 sessile filter feeders, corals and sponges. 



31 These patterns reflect substrate heterogeneity, but they also 



32 reflect other physical parameters, namely the ones we were hearing about 



33 this morning in terms of the enhanced current speeds, the complicated 



116 



