Two New Hydrothermal Fields at the Mid-Atlantic Ridge

Two new major hydrothermal fields have been discovered in the rift valley of the MAR at 13°N (Ashadze) and l6°38′N (Krasnov). The Ashadze field consists of a cluster of active hydrothermal sites associated with ultramafic rocks and located at the greatest depth in the ocean (4,200 m). By contrast, the Krasnov field consists of inactive sulfide mounds hosted in basalts. The Krasnov is the largest hydrothermal deposit on the MAR (17.4 Mt) so far discovered with iron sulfide as the principal mineral type. By contrast, Cu-Zn sulfides are the major minerals in the Ashadze deposits, which are also enriched in gold and several other metals.     

西南印度洋中脊50°E基性超基性岩石地球化学特征及其成因初探

西南印度洋中脊是典型的慢速扩张洋中脊之一。对采自西南印度洋中脊50°E附近的7件玄武岩和蛇纹石化橄榄岩样品所作的分析表明,基性玄武岩类SiO2含量为43.72%～48.40%,TiO2含量较少,为1.14%～1.52%;MgO含量为5.96%～10.98%;TFe2O3含量为4.55%～5.2%;Mg#值为0.53～0.64,里特曼指数σ为2.34～20.10。微量元素Zr/Nb和Y/Nb比值为显示N-MORB的性质,但是其他微量元素的比值(Ba/Nb,Ba/Th,La/Nb,Nb/U,Nb/Pb)均不显示正常洋中脊玄武岩的特征,微量元素原始地幔标准化蛛网图显示强烈富集K和Pb,亏损Nb,稀土元素显示较为平缓的分配模式。超基性蛇纹石化橄榄岩的主量元素特征为SiO2为38.91～45.49;TiO2含量为0.02～0.28;MgO含量很高,为36.87～40.61,TFe2O3含量为2.82～3.91,Mg#值为0.92～0.94。微量元素中Ni,Cr的含量很高,原始地幔标准化蛛网图显示橄榄岩强烈富集K和Pb,Ba,Th,La,Ce,Ti中等程度富集,而亏损Nb,Sr。稀土元素总量较低,标准化曲线显示轻稀土元素富集模式。结合地球化学特征及前人研究资料分析认为,西南印度洋中脊的基性岩和超基性岩属同源性质,其原始地幔物质可能为部分正常洋中脊亏损地幔混染了陆壳或远洋沉积物的结果。     

西南印度洋中脊三维地震探测中炮点与海底地震仪的位置校正

在海上实施三维地震探测过程中,人工震源枪阵中心与船上GPS的距离及地震探测作业中的船行方向造成炮点实际位置与预设位置有一定偏差;自由落体投放的OBS由于海流的影响会偏离原定设计位置(投放点),因此,炮点与海底地震仪(OBS)的位置校正是三维地震结构研究中的基本环节.本文利用艏向信息校正了炮点位置;采用蒙特卡洛和最小二乘法方法对海底地震仪的位置进行了校正,并探讨了直达水波曲线特征.结果表明 OBS位置一般偏离设计点1 km左右,其误差范围在20 m以内,校正后的OBS记录剖面展示了真实的记录情况.该研究结果为下一步西南印度洋的三维层析成像研究提供了坚实数据基础,同时为今后南海的三维深部地壳结构探测提供经验与借鉴.     

Three-dimensional admittance analysis of lithospheric elastic thickness over the Louisville Ridge

Using bathymetry and altimetric gravity anomalies, a 1° 9 1° lithospheric effective elastic thickness(Te) model over the Louisville Ridge and its adjacent regions is calculated using the moving window admittance technique. For comparison, three bathymetry models are used: general bathymetric charts of the oceans, SIO V15.1,and BAT_VGG. The results show that BAT_VGG is more suitable for calculating T e than the other two models. T e along the Louisville Ridge was re-evaluated. The southeast of the ridge has a medium Te of 10–20 km, while Te increases dramatically seaward of the Tonga-Kermadec trench as a result of the collision of the Pacific and IndoAustralian plates.     

基于STIRPAT模型的江苏省能源消费碳排放影响因素分析及趋势预测

定量分析碳排放的影响因素,对降低区域碳排放具有重要的指导意义。利用STIRPAT模型,定量分析江苏省能源消费碳排放量与人口、富裕度（以人均GDP表示）、技术进步（以能源强度表示）和城镇化水平之间的关系,通过岭回归拟合后发现,人口数量、人均GDP、能源强度、城市化水平每变化1%,江苏省能源消费碳排放量将分别发生3.467%、(0.242+0.024 lnA)%、0.313%和0.151%的变化。在以上研究的基础上,设置8种不同的发展情景,分析了江苏省未来能源消费碳排放量的发展趋势。结果表明,当人口、经济保持低速增长,并保持高技术增长率时,有利于控制江苏省的能源消费碳排放量,2020年江苏省的能源消费碳排放量预测值为202.81 MtC。     

Oligo–Miocene seagrass‐influenced carbonate sedimentation along a temperate marine palaeoarchipelago,Padthaway Ridge,South Australia

Oligo–Miocene carbonates associated with the Padthaway Ridge form the southern margin of the Murray Basin, South Australia. The carbonates are a thin, somewhat condensed succession of echinoid and bryozoan‐rich limestones that record accumulation in the complex of islands and seaways and progressive burial of the Ridge through time. The rocks are grainy to muddy bioclastic packstones, grainstones and floatstones, composed of infaunal echinoderms, bryozoans, coralline algae and benthic foraminifera, with lesser contributions from molluscs and serpulid worms. Locally as much as half of these skeletal components are Fe‐stained, relict grains that imbue the lithologies with a conspicuous yellow to orange hue. This variably lithified succession is partitioned into metre‐scale, firmground‐bounded and hardground‐bounded beds textured by extensive Thalassinoides burrows. Dominant lithologies are interpreted as temperate seagrass facies. Limestones contain attributes indicative of both seagrass‐dominated palaeoenvironments and carbonate production and accumulation on unconsolidated, barren sandflat palaeoenvironments. Together these two depositional systems are thought to have generated a single multigenerational, amalgamated facies recording sedimentation within a complex temperate seagrass environment. Limestones overlying the Padthaway Ridge reflect a gradually warming climate, increasing water temperature and decreasing nutrient content, within the framework of a ridge gradually being buried in sediment. This succession from cool–temperate to warm–temperate to subtropical through time permits recognition of the relative influence of changing oceanography on a seagrass‐dominated shallow inter‐island sea floor. Criteria are proposed herein to enable future recognition of similar temperate seagrass facies in Cenozoic limestones elsewhere.     

Pleistocene alkaline rocks of Martin Vaz volcano,South Atlantic: low-degree partial melts of a CO2-metasomatized mantle plume

ABSTRACT

Several alkaline massifs on inland southeastern Brazil extend offshore, roughly parallel to ~20° S, through a seamount chain of the Vitoria-Trindade ridge. This paper presents the first extensive work on the Martin Vaz volcano through whole-rock and Sr and Nd isotopic composition of volcanic and subvolcanic lithotypes from the Martin Vaz Island, located at the easternmost of this volcanic chain. These alkaline rocks were generated during the Plio-Pleistocene (~0.47 My, ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar dating in whole-rock) and represent the crystallization of sodic magmas of nephelinitic composition that evolved through fractional crystallization towards phonolites. Calculations from P–T_Liquidus using PELE software show temperatures of 1045°C and 818°C, viscosity of 2.47 log Poise and 5.02 log Poise, and densities of 2.57 g/cm³ and 2.26 g/cm³ for nephelinite and phonolite, respectively. Like in Trindade Island, the nephelinitic volcanism in Martin Vaz may represent a Strombolian and/or Hawaii-type eruption due to low viscosity magma according to its physical properties whereas phonolitic intrusions present higher viscosity characteristics forming lava domes. The ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr (~ 0.703800) and ¹⁴³Nd/¹⁴⁴Nd (~ 0.512750) ratios of lavas from the seamounts and Martin Vaz do not vary significantly, pointing to partial melting process from a homogeneous mantle source showing isotope signature close to HIMU. Beside the restrict variation on these isotopic ratios, a conspicuous enrichment in incompatible trace elements, mainly LREE, indicates that metasomatism is a recent process and not a long-term source characteristic. Non-modal partial melting models (fractional melting and batch melting) suggest that the source of the Martin Vaz magmatism is consistent with the garnet-lherzolite mantle stability field (>90 km depth; Tb/Yb >0.7), generated about 3.0 GPa by very small degree of partial melting of an enriched wet mantle source (F = 0.03–0.04) with 2.5 wt. % of CO₂.     

Crustal transect from the North Atlantic Knipovich Ridge to the Svalbard Margin west of Hornsund

The crustal structure along a 312 km transect, stretching from the axial mountains of the North Atlantic Knipovich Ridge to the continental shelf of Svalbard, has been obtained using seismic reflection data and wide angle OBS data. The resulting seismic V_p and V_s models are further constrained by a 2-D-gravity model. The principal objective of this study is to describe and resolve the physical and compositional properties of the crust in order to understand the processes and creation of oceanic crust in this extremely slow-spreading counterpart of the North Atlantic Ridge Systems. V_p is estimated to be 3.50–6.05 km/s for the upper oceanic crust (oceanic layer 2), with a marked increase away from the ridge. The measured V_p of 6.55–6.95 km/s for oceanic layer 3A and 7.10–7.25 km/s for layer 3B, both with a V_p/V_s ratio of 1.81, except for slightly higher values at the ridge axis, does not allow a clear distinction between gabbro and mantle-derived peridotite (10–40% serpentized). The thickness of the oceanic crust varies a lot along the transect from the minimum of 5.6 km to a maximum of 8.1 km. The mean thickness of 6.7 km for the oceanic crust is well above the average thickness for slow-spreading ridges (<10 mm/year half-spreading rate). The areas of increased thickness could be explained by large magma production-rates found in the zones of axial highs at the ridge axis, which also have generated the off-axial highs adjacent the ridge. We suggest that these axial and off-axial highs along the ridge control the lithological composition of the oceanic crust. This approach suggests normal gabbroic oceanic crust to be found in the areas bound by the active magma segments (the axial and off-axial highs) and mantle-derived peridotite outside these zone.     

Hydrothermal activity on the southern Mid-Atlantic Ridge: Tectonically- and volcanically-controlled venting at 4–5°S

We report results from an investigation of the geologic processes controlling hydrothermal activity along the previously-unstudied southern Mid-Atlantic Ridge (3–7°S). Our study employed the NOC (UK) deep-tow sidescan sonar instrument, TOBI, in concert with the WHOI (USA) autonomous underwater vehicle, ABE, to collect information concerning hydrothermal plume distributions in the water column co-registered with geologic investigations of the underlying seafloor. Two areas of high-temperature hydrothermal venting were identified. The first was situated in a non-transform discontinuity (NTD) between two adjacent second-order ridge-segments near 4°02′S, distant from any neovolcanic activity. This geologic setting is very similar to that of the ultramafic-hosted and tectonically-controlled Rainbow vent-site on the northern Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The second site was located at 4°48′S at the axial-summit centre of a second-order ridge-segment. There, high-temperature venting is hosted in an  18 km² area of young lava flows which in some cases are observed to have flowed over and engulfed pre-existing chemosynthetic vent-fauna. In both appearance and extent, these lava flows are directly reminiscent of those emplaced in Winter 2005−06 at the East Pacific Rise, 9°50′N and reference to global seismic catalogues reveals that a swarm of large (M 4.6−5.6) seismic events was centred on the 5°S segment over a  24 h period in late June 2002, perhaps indicating the precise timing of this volcanic eruptive episode. Temperature measurements at one of the vents found directly adjacent to the fresh lava flows at 5°S MAR (Turtle Pits) have subsequently revealed vent-fluids that are actively phase separating under conditions very close to the Critical Point for seawater, at  3000 m depth and 407 °C: the hottest vent-fluids yet reported from anywhere along the global ridge crest.