Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Sensitivity of teleseismic body waves to mineral texture and melt in the mantle beneath a mid-ocean ridge
- Evidence for accumulated melt beneath the slow-spreading Mid-Atlantic Ridge
- An analysis of variations in isentropic melt productivity
- A review of melt migration processes in the adiabatically upwelling mantle beneath oceanic spreading ridges
- Rift-plume interaction in the North Atlantic
- The ultrafast East Pacific Rise: instability of the plate boundary and implications for accretionary processes
- Seafloor eruptions and evolution of hydrothermal fluid chemistry
- Controls on the physics and chemistry of seafloor hydrothermal circulation
- Where are the large hydrothermal sulphide deposits in the oceans?
- Sea water entrainment and fluid evolution within the TAG hydrothermal mound: evidence from analyses of anhydrite
- Thermocline penetration by buoyant plumes
- Crustal accretion and the hot vent ecosystem
- Biocatalytic transformations of hydrothermal fluids
- Index
Seafloor eruptions and evolution of hydrothermal fluid chemistry
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 August 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Sensitivity of teleseismic body waves to mineral texture and melt in the mantle beneath a mid-ocean ridge
- Evidence for accumulated melt beneath the slow-spreading Mid-Atlantic Ridge
- An analysis of variations in isentropic melt productivity
- A review of melt migration processes in the adiabatically upwelling mantle beneath oceanic spreading ridges
- Rift-plume interaction in the North Atlantic
- The ultrafast East Pacific Rise: instability of the plate boundary and implications for accretionary processes
- Seafloor eruptions and evolution of hydrothermal fluid chemistry
- Controls on the physics and chemistry of seafloor hydrothermal circulation
- Where are the large hydrothermal sulphide deposits in the oceans?
- Sea water entrainment and fluid evolution within the TAG hydrothermal mound: evidence from analyses of anhydrite
- Thermocline penetration by buoyant plumes
- Crustal accretion and the hot vent ecosystem
- Biocatalytic transformations of hydrothermal fluids
- Index
Summary
A major challenge confronting geochemists is to relate the chemistry of vented hydrothermal fluids to the local or regional tectonic and volcanic state of mid-ocean ridges. After more than 15 years of sampling submarine hydrothermal fluids, a complex picture of spatial and temporal variability in temperature and composition is emerging. Recent time-series observations and sampling of ridge segments with confirmed recent volcanic eruptions (CoAxial and North Cleft on the Juan de Fu caridge and 9–10° N on the East Pacific Rise) have created a first-order understanding of how hydrothermal systems respond to volcanic events on the seafloor. Phase separation and enhanced volatile fluxes are associated with volcanic eruptions, with vapour-dominated fluids predominating in the initial post-eruption period, followed in time by brine-dominated fluids, consistent with temporary storage of brine below the seafloor. Chemical data for CoAxial vents presented here are consistent with this evolution. Rapid changes in output and composition of hydrothermal fluids following volcanic events may have a profound effect on microbiological production, macrofaunal colonization, and hydrothermal heat and mass fluxes. Size and location of the heat source are critical in determining how fast heat is removed and whether subseafloor microbial production will flourish. Co Axial event plumes may be a direct result of dyking and eruption of lavas on the seafloor.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Mid-Ocean RidgesDynamics of Processes Associated with the Creation of New Oceanic Crust, pp. 153 - 170Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1999
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