| Abstract: | Eighty topographic transects were made off the central Atlantic coast of Florida between Cape Canaveral and Palm Beach, November, 1973 to September, 1974, aboard the Research Vessel Gosnold. Profiles obtained with a precision depth recorder indicated the presence of continuous and discontinuous structures on the outer continental shelf and at the shelf-slope break. Most conspicuous was a band of pinnacles, benches, mounds and troughs extending north from Fort Pierce to Cape Canaveral, Florida, and a massive mound occurring off St. Lucie Inlet. These occurred under the western edge of the Florida Current and along the edge of the continental shelf (about 80° W). From Fort Pierce southward to Palm Beach, these structures almost disappear. Dredgings in two selected areas of pronounced vertical profile, and preliminary visual and photographic observations made with the Johnson-Sea-Link I submersible, confirmed the existence of rich, sessile and motile invertebrate assemblages and fish populations associated with exposed limestone bedrock, talus, and the scleractinian coral Oculina varicosa. |
