Brothers volcano, of the Kermadec intraoceanic arc, is host to a hydrothermal system unique among seafloor hydrothermal systems known anywhere in the world. It has two distinct vent fields, known as ...the NW Caldera and Cone sites, whose geology, permeability, vent fluid compositions, mineralogy, and ore-forming conditions are in stark contrast to each other. The NW Caldera site strikes for ∼600 m in a SW–NE direction with chimneys occurring over a ∼145-m depth interval, between ∼1,690 and 1,545 m. At least 100 dead and active sulfide chimney spires occur in this field and are typically 2–3 m in height, with some reaching 6–7 m. Their ages (at time of sampling) fall broadly into three groups: <4, 23, and 35 years old. The chimneys typically occur near the base of individual fault-controlled benches on the caldera wall, striking in lines orthogonal to the slopes. Rarer are massive sulfide crusts 2–3 m thick. Two main types of chimney predominate: Cu-rich (up to 28.5 wt.% Cu) and, more commonly, Zn-rich (up to 43.8 wt.% Zn). Geochemical results show that Mo, Bi, Co, Se, Sn, and Au (up to 91 ppm) are correlated with the Cu mineralization, whereas Cd, Hg, Sb, Ag, and As are associated with the dominant Zn-rich mineralization. The Cone site comprises the Upper Cone site atop the summit of the recent (main) dacite cone and the Lower Cone site that straddles the summit of an older, smaller, more degraded dacite cone on the NE flank of the main cone. Huge volumes of diffuse venting are seen at the Lower Cone site, in contrast to venting at both the Upper Cone and NW Caldera sites. Individual vents are marked by low-relief (≤0.5 m) mounds comprising predominately native sulfur with bacterial mats. Vent fluids of the NW Caldera field are focused, hot (≤300°C), acidic (pH ≥ 2.8), metal-rich, and gas-poor. Calculated end-member fluids from NW Caldera vents indicate that phase separation has occurred, with Cl values ranging from 93% to 137% of seawater values. By contrast, vent fluids at the Cone site are diffuse, noticeably cooler (≤122°C), more acidic (pH 1.9), metal-poor, and gas-rich. Higher-than-seawater values of SO
4
and Mg in the Cone vent fluids show that these ions are being added to the hydrothermal fluid and are not being depleted via normal water/rock interactions. Iron oxide crusts 3 years in age cover the main cone summit and appear to have formed from Fe-rich brines. Evidence for magmatic contributions to the hydrothermal system at Brothers includes: high concentrations of dissolved CO
2
(e.g., 206 mM/kg at the Cone site); high CO
2
/
3
He; negative δD and δ
18
O
H2O
for vent fluids; negative δ
34
S for sulfides (to −4.6‰), sulfur (to −10.2‰), and δ
15
N
2
(to −3.5‰); vent fluid pH values to 1.9; and mineral assemblages common to high-sulfidation systems. Changing physicochemical conditions at the Brothers hydrothermal system, and especially the Cone site, occur over periods of months to hundreds of years, as shown by interlayered Cu + Au- and Zn-rich zones in chimneys, variable fluid and isotopic compositions, similar shifts in
3
He/
4
He values for both Cone and NW Caldera sites, and overprinting of “magmatic” mineral assemblages by water/rock-dominated assemblages. Metals, especially Cu and possibly Au, may be entering the hydrothermal system via the dissolution of metal-rich glasses. They are then transported rapidly up into the system via magmatic volatiles utilizing vertical (∼2.5 km long), narrow (∼300-m diameter) “pipes,” consistent with evidence of vent fluids forming at relatively shallow depths. The NW Caldera and Cone sites are considered to represent stages along a continuum between water/rock- and magmatic/hydrothermal-dominated end-members.
Volcanic Eruptions in the Deep Sea RUBIN, KENNETH H; SOULE, S. ADAM; CHADWICK, WILLIAM W. ...
Oceanography (Washington, D.C.),
03/2012, Letnik:
25, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Volcanic eruptions are important events in Earth's cycle of magma generation and crustal construction. Over durations of hours to years, eruptions produce new deposits of lava and/or fragmentary ...ejecta, transfer heat and magmatic volatiles from Earth's interior to the overlying air or seawater, and significantly modify the landscape and perturb local ecosystems. Today and through most of geological history, the greatest number and volume of volcanic eruptions on Earth have occurred in the deep ocean along mid-ocean ridges, near subduction zones, on oceanic plateaus, and on thousands of mid-plate seamounts. However, deepsea eruptions (> 500 m depth) are much more difficult to detect and observe than subaerial eruptions, so comparatively little is known about them. Great strides have been made in eruption detection, response speed, and observational detail since the first recognition of a deep submarine eruption at a mid-ocean ridge 25 years ago. Studies of ongoing or recent deep submarine eruptions reveal information about their sizes, durations, frequencies, styles, and environmental impacts. Ultimately, magma formation and accumulation in the upper mantle and crust, plus local tectonic stress fields, dictate when, where, and how often submarine eruptions occur, whereas eruption depth, magma composition, conditions of volatile segregation, and tectonic setting determine submarine eruption style.
New field observations reveal that extensive (up to ~ 402 km
2
) aphyric, glassy dacite lavas were erupted at multiple sites in the recent past in the NE Lau basin, located about 200 km southwest of ...Samoa. This discovery of volumetrically significant and widespread submarine dacite lava flows extends the domain for siliceous effusive volcanism into the deep seafloor. Although several lava flow fields were discovered on the flank of a large silicic seamount, Niuatahi, two of the largest lava fields and several smaller ones (“northern lava flow fields”) were found well north of the seamount. The most distal portion of the northernmost of these fields is 60 km north of the center of Niuatahi caldera. We estimate that lava flow lengths from probable eruptive vents to the distal ends of flows range from a few km to more than 10 km. Camera tows on the shallower, near-vent areas show complex lava morphology that includes anastomosing tube-like pillow flows and ropey surfaces, endogenous domes and/or ridges, some with “crease-like” extrusion ridges, and inflated lobes with extrusion structures. A 2 × 1.5 km, 30-m deep depression could be an eruption center for one of the lava flow fields. The Lau lava flow fields appear to have erupted at presumptive high effusion rates and possibly reduced viscosity induced by presumptive high magmatic water content and/or a high eruption temperature, consistent with both erupted composition (~ 66% SiO
2
) and glassy low crystallinity groundmass textures. The large areal extent (236 km
2
) and relatively small range of compositional variation (
σ
= 0.60 for wt% Si0
2
%) within the northern lava flow fields imply the existence of large, eruptible batches of differentiated melt in the upper mantle or lower crust of the NE Lau basin. At this site, the volcanism could be controlled by deep crustal fractures caused by the long-term extension in this rear-arc region. Submarine dacite flows exhibiting similar morphology have been described in ancient sequences from the Archaean through the Miocene and in small batches on present-day seafloor spreading centers. This study shows that extensive siliceous lavas can erupt on the modern seafloor under the right conditions.
During E/V Nautilus NA072 expedition, multibeam sonar surveys located over 800 individual bubble streams rising from the Cascadia Margin between the Strait of Juan de Fuca and Cape Mendocino at ...depths between 104 and 2,073 m. Gas bubbles were collected directly at the seafloor using gastight sampling bottles. These bubbles were consistently composed of over 99% methane with traces of carbon dioxide, oxygen, nitrogen, noble gases, and more rarely higher hydrocarbons. A common previous view was that a biogenic source was responsible for seeps from within the gas hydrate stability zone (upper limit near 500‐m isobath) and a thermogenic source was responsible for seeps from the upper slope and the shelf. Higher hydrocarbons in deep seeps with a biogenic methane signature, as well as the lack of higher hydrocarbons in some shallower seeps with a thermogenic methane signature, show that the origin of the gas cannot simply be attributed to seep location on the margin. Instead, mixing and oxidation processes play an integral role. 3He/4He ratios at Coquille SW point to a contribution of 30% mantle helium, whereas all the other investigated sites are characterized by a crustal helium signature. Hence, the Coquille SW seeps are directly or indirectly connected to the mantle or to very young oceanic crust. The detection of mantle helium in these seeps can thus be used as a tracer for deep‐reaching fracture systems and their changing pathways.
Key Points
Mantle‐derived helium detected in cold methane seeps at the Cascadia Margin can be used as tracer for deep fracture systems
Multiple methane sources as well as mixing and oxidation processes are present at the Cascadia Margin cold seeps
The Cascadia Margin seeps are unequivocally dominated by methane
Multibeam (1 m resolution) and side scan data collected from an autonomous underwater vehicle, and lava samples, radiocarbon‐dated sediment cores, and observations of flow contacts collected by ...remotely operated vehicle were combined to reconstruct the geologic history and flow emplacement processes on Axial Seamount's summit and upper rift zones. The maps show 52 post‐410 CE lava flows and 20 precaldera lava flows as old as 31.2 kyr, the inferred age of the caldera. Clastic deposits 1–2 m thick accumulated on the rims postcaldera. Between 31 ka and 410 CE, there are no known lava flows near the summit. The oldest postcaldera lava (410 CE) is a pillow cone SE of the caldera. Two flows erupted on the W rim between ∼800 and 1000 CE. From 1220 to 1300 CE, generally small eruptions of plagioclase phyric, depleted, mafic lava occurred in the central caldera and on the east rim. Larger post‐1400 CE eruptions produced inflated lobate flows of aphyric, less‐depleted, and less mafic lava on the upper rift zones and in the N and S caldera. All caldera floor lava flows, and most uppermost rift zone flows, postdate 1220 CE. Activity shifted from the central caldera to the upper S rift outside the caldera, to the N rift and caldera floor, and then to the S caldera and uppermost S rift, where two historical eruptions occurred in 1998 and 2011. The average recurrence interval deduced from the flows erupted over the last 800 years is statistically identical to the 13 year interval between historical eruptions.
Key Points
All 35 lava flows inside the caldera erupted within the last 800 years
More primitive and depleted lavas erupted only from 700‐800 years ago
The summit caldera formed ~31 kyr ago
West Mata is a submarine volcano located in the SW Pacific Ocean between Fiji and Samoa in the NE Lau Basin. West Mata was discovered to be actively erupting at its summit in September 2008 and May ...2009. Water-column chemistry and hydrophone data suggest it was probably continuously active until early 2011. Subsequent repeated bathymetric surveys of West Mata have shown that it changed to a style of frequent but intermittent eruptions away from the summit since then. We present new data from ship-based bathymetric surveys, high-resolution bathymetry from an autonomous underwater vehicle, and observations from remotely operated vehicle dives that document four additional eruptions between 2012-2018. Three of those eruptions occurred between September 2012 and March 2016; one near the summit on the upper ENE rift, a second on the NE flank away from any rift zone, and a third at the NE base of the volcano. The latter intruded a sill into a basin with thick sediments, uplifted them, and then extruded lava onto the seafloor around them. The most recent of the four eruptions occurred between March 2016 and November 2017 along the middle ENE rift zone and produced pillow lava flows with a shingled morphology and tephra as well as clastic debris that mantled the SE slope. ROV dive observations show that the shallower recent eruptions at West Mata include a substantial pyroclastic component, based on thick (>1m) tephra deposits near eruptive vents. The deepest eruption sites lack these near-vent tephra deposits, suggesting that pyroclastic activity is minimal below ~2500 mbsl. The multibeam sonar re-surveys constrain the timing, thickness, area, morphology, and volume of the new eruptions. The cumulative erupted volume since 1996 suggests that eruptions at West Mata are volume-predictable with an average eruption rate of 7.8 x 106 m3/yr. This relatively low magma supply rate and the high frequency of eruptions (every 1-2 years) suggests that the magma reservoir at West Mata is relatively small. With its frequent activity, West Mata continues to be an ideal natural laboratory for the study of submarine volcanic eruptions.
Pressure measurements made on the seafloor at depths between 1500 and 1700 m at Axial Seamount, an active submarine volcano on the Juan de Fuca Ridge in the northeast Pacific Ocean, show evidence ...that it has been inflating since its 1998 eruption. Data from continuously recording bottom pressure sensors at the center of Axial's caldera suggest that the rate of inflation was highest in the months right after the eruption (20 cm/month) and has since declined to a steady rate of ∼15 cm/year. Independent campaign-style pressure measurements made each year since 2000 at an array of seafloor benchmarks with a mobile pressure recorder mounted on a remotely operated vehicle also indicate uplift is occurring in the caldera at a rate up to 22
±
1.3 cm/year relative to a point outside the caldera. The repeatability of the campaign-style pressure measurements progressively improved each year from ±
15 cm in 2000 to ±
0.9 cm in 2004, as errors were eliminated and the technique was refined. Assuming that the uplift has been continuous since the 1998 eruption, these observations suggest that the center of the caldera has re-inflated about 1.5
±
0.1 m, thus recovering almost 50% of the 3.2 m of subsidence that was measured during the 1998 eruption. This rate of inflation can be used to calculate a magma supply rate of 14
×
10
6 m
3/year. If this rate of inflation continues, it also suggests a recurrence interval of ∼
16 years between eruptions at Axial, assuming that it will be ready to erupt again when it has re-inflated to 1998 levels.
The NOAA Vents Program 1983 to 2013 Hammond, Stephen R.; Embley, Robert W.; Baker, Edward T.
Oceanography,
03/2015, Letnik:
28, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Two seminal advances in the late 1970s in science and technology spurred the establishment of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)Vents Program: the unexpected discovery of ...seafloor vents and chemosyntheticecosystems on the Galápagos Spreading Center (GSC), and civilian access to a previouslyclassified multibeam mapping sonar system. A small team of NOAA scientists immediately embarked on an effort to apply the new mapping technology to the discovery of vents, animal communities, and polymetallic sulfide deposits on spreading ridges in the Northeast Pacific Ocean. The addition of interdisciplinary colleagues from NOAA's cooperative institutes at Oregon State University and the University of Washington led to the creation of the Vents Program in 1983 at NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory. Within a decade, Vents surveyed the entire Juan de Fuca and Gorda Ridges for hydrothermal activity, discovered the first "megaplume," established multiyear time series of hydrothermal fluid measurements, and, for the first time, acoustically detected and responded to a deep-sea volcanic eruption. With this experience, and partnering with researchers from around the globe, Vents expanded to exploration along the East Pacific and GSC divergent plate boundaries. In 1999, the Vents Program embarked on systematic surveys along volcanic arcs and backarc basins of the Mariana and Kermadec-Tonga subduction zones. For three decades, the Vents Program focused on understanding the physical, chemical, and biological environmental consequences of global-scale processes that regulate the transfer of heat and mass from Earth's hot interior into the ocean. As the fourth decade began, the Vents Program was restructured into two new programs, Earth-Ocean Interactions and Acoustics, that together continue, and broaden, the scope of Vents' pioneering ocean exploration and research.
The eruption of South Sarigan Seamount in the southern Mariana arc in May 2010 is a reminder of how little we know about the hazards associated with submarine explosive eruptions or how to predict ...these types of eruptions. Monitored by local seismometers and distant hydrophones, the eruption from ~ 200 m water depth produced a gas and ash plume that breached the sea surface and rose ~ 12 km into the atmosphere. This is one of the first instances for which a wide range of pre- and post-eruption observations allow characterization of such an event on a shallow submarine volcanic arc volcano. Comparison of bathymetric surveys before and after the eruptions of the South Sarigan Seamount reveals the eruption produced a 350 m diameter crater, deeply breached on the west side, and a broad apron downslope with deposits > 50 m thick. The breached summit crater formed within a pre-eruption dome-shaped summit composed of andesite lavas. Dives with the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and TechnologyHyper-Dolphinremotely operated vehicle sampled the wall of the crater and the downslope deposits, which consist of andesite lava blocks lying on pumiceous gravel and sand. Chemical analyses show that the andesite pumice is probably juvenile material from the eruption. The unexpected eruption of this seamount, one of many poorly studied shallow seamounts of comparable size along the Mariana and other volcanic arcs, underscores our lack of understanding of submarine hazards associated with submarine volcanism
An underwater glider with an acoustic data logger flew toward a recently discovered erupting submarine volcano in the northern Lau basin. With the volcano providing a wide-band sound source, ...recordings from the two-day survey produced a two-dimensional sound level map spanning 1 km (depth) × 40 km(distance). The observed sound field shows depth- and range-dependence, with the first-order spatial pattern being consistent with the predictions of a range-dependent propagation model. The results allow constraining the acoustic source level of the volcanic activity and suggest that the glider provides an effective platform for monitoring natural and anthropogenic ocean sounds.
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