Deep water hydrodynamic observations around a Cold-Water Coral habitat in a submarine canyon in the Eastern Ligurian Sea (Mediterranean Sea)

Abstract. A 2 years dataset of a stand-alone mooring placed, deployed in November 2020 down the Levante Canyon in the Eastern Ligurian Sea, is presented. The Levante Canyon Mooring (LCM) is a deep submarine multidisciplinary observatory deployed at 608 m depth, in a key ecosystem area. The Levante Canyon hosts a valuable and vulnerable ecosystem of deep-living Cold-Water Corals (CWC), studied and monitored since 2013 through the integrated mapping of seabed and water column. The 2 years dataset, acquired on the mooring and presented here (data from November 2020 to October 2022), includes measurements conducted with both currentmeters and CTD probes, and provides information about the hydrodynamics and thermohaline properties across almost the entire water column. The observatory is still on-going and the dataset is regularly updated. All the described data are publicly available from https://doi.org/10.17882/92236 (Borghini et al., 2022). They must therefore be preserved and are of considerable scientific interest.