Subsea (0-40 m) terraces and benches, windward off Curaçao, Netherlands Antilles

At the windward (NE) side of Curaçao at least two well-developed submarine terraces occur. A first, rocky, terrace, 100 to 150 m wide at depths of 5 m inshore to 12-15 m at the drop off, is densely covered with Sargassum. A second, sandy, terrace, approximately 50 to 100 m wide at depths of 32 to 40 m, is sparsely covered with corals, sponges, rhodolites and gastropods of the genus Strombus. The slope between the first and the second terrace is covered with hermatypic corals and fleshy algae. At several locations a fossil bench occurs at the lower end of this slope. The upper surface of the bench is consistently at 32 m below sealevel. At two localities the bench has an indentation at 34-38 m below sealevel, which possibly is a fossil sealevel notch. The features are regarded as essentially pre-Holocene, markedly different from the situation at the leeward side where the terraces, if present, have been buried underneath Holocene reef accumulations.