Winter Vertical Diffusion Rates in the Arctic Ocean, Estimated From 7Be Measurements and Dissipation Rate Profiles

Ocean turbulent mixing is a key process affecting the uptake and redistribution of heat, carbon, nutrients, oxygen and other dissolved gasses. Vertical turbulent diffusivity sets the rates of water mass transformations and ocean mixing, and is intrinsically an average quantity over process time scales. Estimates based on microstructure profiling, however, are typically obtained as averages over individual profiles. How representative such averaged diffusivities are, remains unexplored in the quiescent Arctic Ocean. Here, we compare upper ocean vertical diffusivities in winter, derived from the 7Be tracer-based approach to those estimated from direct turbulence measurements during the year-long Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) expedition, 2019–2020. We found that diffusivity estimates from both methods agree within their respective measurement uncertainties. Diffusivity estimates obtained from dissipation rate profiles are sensitive to the averaging method applied, and the processing and analysis of similar data sets must take this sensitivity into account. Our findings indicate low characteristic diffusivities around 10−6 m2 s−1 and correspondingly low vertical heat fluxes.publishedVersio

Beryllium-7 analyses in seawater by low background gamma-spectroscopy

Author Posting. © Akadémiai Kiadó, 2008. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Springer for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry 277 (2008): 253-259, doi:10.1007/s10967-008-0739-y.7Be is a cosmogenic isotope produced in the stratosphere and troposphere. 7Be has a half-life of 53.4 days and decays to 7Li emitting a 477 keV gamma line with a branching ratio of 0.104. It is predominantly washed out of the atmosphere through wet deposition. It is a tool for oceanographers to study air sea interaction and water mass mixing. Beryllium’s largely non-reactive nature in the open ocean makes it an excellent conservative tracer. Its conservative nature and extreme dilution in seawater also makes it difficult to concentrate and analyze. Early experiments at WHOI with Fe(OH)3 cartridges to directly collect 7Be by insitu underwater pumps proved ineffective. Collection efficiencies of the cartridges were too low to be consistently useful. At sea chemistry of whole water samples became the method of choice. The use of stable 9Be as a yield monitor further improved the accuracy of the procedure. The method was optimized at WHOI in 2005 using a seawater line that enters WHOI’s coastal research lab. The procedure was then used on an oceanographic cruise on the R/V Oceanus out of Bermuda in the oligotrophic Sargasso Sea.The authors would like to thank DOE, ONR and NSF for funding of this research

Sulfide geochronology along the Endeavour Segment of the Juan de Fuca Ridge

Forty-nine hydrothermal sulfide-sulfate rock samples from the Endeavour Segment of the Juan de Fuca Ridge, northeastern Pacific Ocean, were dated by measuring the decay of 226Ra (half-life of 1600 years) in hydrothermal barite to provide a history of hydrothermal venting at the site over the past 6000 years. This dating method is effective for samples ranging in age from ∼200 to 20,000 years old and effectively bridges an age gap between shorter- and longer-lived U-series dating techniques for hydrothermal deposits. Results show that hydrothermal venting at the active High Rise, Sasquatch, and Main Endeavour fields began at least 850, 1450, and 2300 years ago, respectively. Barite ages of other inactive deposits on the axial valley floor are between ∼1200 and ∼2200 years old, indicating past widespread hydrothermal venting outside of the currently active vent fields. Samples from the half-graben on the eastern slope of the axial valley range in age from ∼1700 to ∼2925 years, and a single sample from outside the axial valley, near the westernmost valley fault scarp is ∼5850 ± 205 years old. The spatial relationship between hydrothermal venting and normal faulting suggests a temporal relationship, with progressive younging of sulfide deposits from the edges of the axial valley toward the center of the rift. These relationships are consistent with the inward migration of normal faulting toward the center of the valley over time and a minimum age of onset of hydrothermal activity in this region of 5850 years

Oregon Subduction Zone: Venting, Fauna, and Carbonates

Transects of the submersible Alvin across rock outcrops in the Oregon subduction zone have furnished information on the structural and stratigraphic framework of this accretionary complex. Communities of clams and tube worms, and authigenic carbonate mineral precipitates, are associated with venting sites of cool fluids located on a fault-bend anticline at a water depth of 2036 meters. The distribution of animals and carbonates suggests up-dip migration of fluids from both shallow and deep sources along permeable strata or fault zones within these clastic deposits. Methane is enriched in the water column over one vent site, and carbonate minerals and animal tissues are highly enriched in carbon-12. The animals use methane as an energy and food source in symbiosis with microorganisms. Oxidized methane is also the carbon source for the authigenic carbonates that cement the sediments of the accretionary complex. The animal communities and carbonates observed in the Oregon subduction zone occur in strata as old as 2.0 million years and provide criteria for identifying other localities where modern and ancient accreted deposits have vented methane, hydrocarbons, and other nutrient-bearing fluids

Disturbance of deep-sea environments induced by the M9.0 Tohoku Earthquake

The impacts of the M9.0 Tohoku Earthquake on deep-sea environment were investigated 36 and 98 days after the event. The light transmission anomaly in the deep-sea water after 36 days became atypically greater (∼35%) and more extensive (thickness ∼1500 m) near the trench axis owing to the turbulent diffusion of fresh seafloor sediment, coordinated with potential seafloor displacement. In addition to the chemical influx associated with sediment diffusion, an influx of 13C-enriched methane from the deep sub-seafloor reservoirs was estimated. This isotopically unusual methane influx was possibly triggered by the earthquake and its aftershocks that subsequently induced changes in the sub-seafloor hydrogeologic structures. The whole prokaryotic biomass and the development of specific phylotypes in the deep-sea microbial communities could rise and fall at 36 and 98 days, respectively, after the event. We may capture the snap shots of post-earthquake disturbance in deep-sea chemistry and microbial community responses

Piston core record of Late Paleogene (31 Ma) to recent seafloor hydrothermal activity in the Southwest Pacific Basin

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/94790/1/palo1386.pd

Seismic structure of the Endeavour Segment, Juan de Fuca Ridge : correlations with seismicity and hydrothermal activity

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2007. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research 112 (2007): B02401, doi:10.1029/2005JB004210.Multichannel seismic reflection data collected in July 2002 at the Endeavour Segment, Juan de Fuca Ridge, show a midcrustal reflector underlying all of the known high-temperature hydrothermal vent fields in this area. On the basis of the character and geometry of this reflection, its similarity to events at other spreading centers, and its polarity, we identify this as a reflection from one or more crustal magma bodies rather than from a hydrothermal cracking front interface. The Endeavour magma chamber reflector is found under the central, topographically shallow section of the segment at two-way traveltime (TWTT) values of 0.9–1.4 s (∼2.1–3.3 km) below the seafloor. It extends approximately 24 km along axis and is shallowest beneath the center of the segment and deepens toward the segment ends. On cross-axis lines the axial magma chamber (AMC) reflector is only 0.4–1.2 km wide and appears to dip 8–36° to the east. While a magma chamber underlies all known Endeavour high-temperature hydrothermal vent fields, AMC depth is not a dominant factor in determining vent fluid properties. The stacked and migrated seismic lines also show a strong layer 2a event at TWTT values of 0.30 ± 0.09 s (380 ± 120 m) below the seafloor on the along-axis line and 0.38 ± 0.09 s (500 ± 110 m) on the cross-axis lines. A weak Moho reflection is observed in a few locations at TWTT values of 1.9–2.4 s below the seafloor. By projecting hypocenters of well-located microseismicity in this region onto the seismic sections, we find that most axial earthquakes are concentrated just above the magma chamber and distributed diffusely within this zone, indicating thermal-related cracking. The presence of a partially molten crustal magma chamber argues against prior hypotheses that hydrothermal heat extraction at this intermediate spreading ridge is primarily driven by propagation of a cracking front down into a frozen magma chamber and indicates that magmatic heat plays a significant role in the hydrothermal system. Morphological and hydrothermal differences between the intermediate spreading Endeavour and fast spreading ridges are attributable to the greater depth of the Endeavour AMC and the corresponding possibility of axial faulting.E.V.A. was supported by a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, the WHOI-MIT Joint Program, and the WHOI Deep Ocean Exploration Institute. This work was also supported by OCE-0002551 to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, OCE-0002488 to Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, and OCE-0002600 to Scripps Institution of Oceanography

Adaptations to Submarine Hydrothermal Environments Exemplified by the Genome of Nautilia profundicola

Submarine hydrothermal vents are model systems for the Archaean Earth environment, and some sites maintain conditions that may have favored the formation and evolution of cellular life. Vents are typified by rapid fluctuations in temperature and redox potential that impose a strong selective pressure on resident microbial communities. Nautilia profundicola strain Am-H is a moderately thermophilic, deeply-branching Epsilonproteobacterium found free-living at hydrothermal vents and is a member of the microbial mass on the dorsal surface of vent polychaete, Alvinella pompejana. Analysis of the 1.7-Mbp genome of N. profundicola uncovered adaptations to the vent environment—some unique and some shared with other Epsilonproteobacterial genomes. The major findings included: (1) a diverse suite of hydrogenases coupled to a relatively simple electron transport chain, (2) numerous stress response systems, (3) a novel predicted nitrate assimilation pathway with hydroxylamine as a key intermediate, and (4) a gene (rgy) encoding the hallmark protein for hyperthermophilic growth, reverse gyrase. Additional experiments indicated that expression of rgy in strain Am-H was induced over 100-fold with a 20°C increase above the optimal growth temperature of this bacterium and that closely related rgy genes are present and expressed in bacterial communities residing in geographically distinct thermophilic environments. N. profundicola, therefore, is a model Epsilonproteobacterium that contains all the genes necessary for life in the extreme conditions widely believed to reflect those in the Archaean biosphere—anaerobic, sulfur, H2- and CO2-rich, with fluctuating redox potentials and temperatures. In addition, reverse gyrase appears to be an important and common adaptation for mesophiles and moderate thermophiles that inhabit ecological niches characterized by rapid and frequent temperature fluctuations and, as such, can no longer be considered a unique feature of hyperthermophiles

Does sea level influence mid-ocean ridge magmatism on Milankovitch timescales?

Magma production at mid-ocean ridges is driven by seafloor spreading and decompression melting of the upper mantle. In the special case of Iceland, mantle melting may have been amplified by ice sheet retreat during the last deglaciation, yielding anomalously high rates of subaerial volcanism. For the remainder of the global mid-ocean ridge system, the ocean may play an analogous role, with lowering of sea level during glacial maxima producing greater magma flux to ridge crests. Here we show that the mantle decompression rate associated with changes in sea level is a substantial fraction of that from plate spreading. Modeled peaks in magma flux occur after sea level drops rapidly, including the Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 5/4 and 3/2 transitions. The minimum in simulated flux occurs during the mid-Holocene, due to the rapid sea level rise at the MIS 2/1 boundary. The model results are highly sensitive to melt migration rate; rates of ~1 m/yr produce small signals, while those >5 m/yr yield substantial anomalies. In the latter case, sea level-driven magma flux varies by 15–100% relative to the long-term average, with the largest effect occurring at slow-spreading ridges. We suggest that sedimentary time series of hydrothermal particle flux, oceanic Os isotopic ratio, and oceanic radiocarbon may serve as proxies for magma-flux variations at mid-ocean ridges. Although well-dated records are rare, preliminary data from the Pacific and Atlantic suggest hydrothermal metal flux was elevated during MIS 2 and 4, broadly consistent with our modeling results