Recent brachiopods collected during the “SEAMOUNT 1” CRUISE off Portugal and the Ibero-Moroccan Gulf (Northeastern Atlantic) in 1987

The Seamount 1 expedition, on board R.V. Noroit in 1987, explored the Lusitanian seamounts off Portugal and the Ibero-Moroccan Gulf of the Northeast Atlantic. A rich brachiopod fauna of about 15 species has been identified in 52 of the 117 stations sampled. The species living around these seamounts are examined, observed using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to complete their micro-morphological characteristics, and classified in accordance with the Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology (Brachiopoda Revised, Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology, Geological Society of America Inc. and University of Kansas, Boulder, Colorado and Lawrence vol. 1 (1997), vols. 2, 3 (2000) and forthcoming volumes). The location of these seamounts, between the Mediterranean and the Caribbean Seas, allows some faunal comparisons to be made. Comparisons are also made with the brachiopod fauna from Seamount 2, which allows taxonomic assessment of the status of one species, Stenosarina crosnieri (COOPER), found in both cruises. Apart from the species characteristics, and the occurrence of early diagenetic transformations of the shells, this paper describes the depth-ranges, the substrate relationships, and highlights the wide colonisation of these seamounts due to the free larval stage of these benthic species.