Submarine record of volcanic island construction and collapse in the Lesser Antilles arc: First scientific drilling of submarine volcanic island landslides by IODP Expedition 340

IODP Expedition 340 successfully drilled a series of sites offshore Montserrat, Martinique and Dominica in the Lesser Antilles from March to April 2012. These are among the few drill sites gathered around volcanic islands, and the first scientific drilling of large and likely tsunamigenic volcanic island-arc landslide deposits. These cores provide evidence and tests of previous hypotheses for the composition and origin of those deposits. Sites U1394, U1399, and U1400 that penetrated landslide deposits recovered exclusively seafloor-sediment, comprising mainly turbidites and hemipelagic deposits, and lacked debris avalanche deposits. This supports the concepts that i/ volcanic debris avalanches tend to stop at the slope break, and ii/ widespread and voluminous failures of pre-existing low-gradient seafloor sediment can be triggered by initial emplacement of material from the volcano. Offshore Martinique (U1399 and 1400), the landslide deposits comprised blocks of parallel strata that were tilted or micro-faulted, sometimes separated by intervals of homogenized sediment (intense shearing), while Site U1394 offshore Montserrat penetrated a flat-lying block of intact strata. The most likely mechanism for generating these large-scale seafloor-sediment failures appears to be propagation of a decollement from proximal areas loaded and incised by a volcanic debris avalanche. These results have implications for the magnitude of tsunami generation. Under some conditions, volcanic island landslide deposits comprised of mainly seafloor sediment will tend to form smaller magnitude tsunamis than equivalent volumes of subaerial block-rich mass flows rapidly entering water. Expedition 340 also successfully drilled sites to access the undisturbed record of eruption fallout layers intercalated with marine sediment which provide an outstanding high-resolution dataset to analyze eruption and landslides cycles, improve understanding of magmatic evolution as well as offshore sedimentation processes. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved

Seismic structure across the rift valley of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge at 23°20′ (MARK area): Implications for crustal accretion processes at slow spreading ridges

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The Mw = 6.3, November 21, 2004, Les Saintes earthquake (Guadeloupe): Tectonic setting, slip model and static stress changes,

International audienceOn November 21, 2004, a magnitude 6.3 earthquake occurred offshore, 10 km south of Les Saintes archipelago in Guadeloupe (French West Indies). There were more than 30000 aftershocks recorded in the following two years, most of them at shallow depth near the islands of the archipelago. The main shock and its main aftershock of February 14, 2005 (Mw = 5.8) ruptured a NE-dipping normal fault (Roseau fault), mapped and identified as active from high-resolution bathymetric data a few years before. This fault belongs to an arc-parallel en echelon fault system that follows the inner edge of the northern part of the Lesser Antilles arc, accommodating the sinistral component of oblique convergence between the North American and Caribbean plates. The distribution of aftershocks and damage (destruction and landslides) are consistent with the main fault plane location and attitude. The slip model of the main shock, obtained by inverting jointly global broadband and local strong motion records, is characterized by two main slip zones located 5 to 10 km to the SE and NW of the hypocenter. The main shock is shown to have increased the Coulomb stress at the tips of the ruptured plane by more than 4 bars where most of the aftershocks occurred, implying that failures on fault system were mainly promoted by static stress changes. The earthquake also had an effect on volcanic activity since the Boiling Lake in Dominica drained twice, probably as a result of the extensional strain induced by the earthquake and its main aftershock

30 years in the life of an active submarine volcano: A time-lapse bathymetry study of the Kick-‘em-Jenny Volcano, Lesser Antilles

Effective monitoring is an essential part of identifying and mitigating volcanic hazards. In the submarine environment this is more difficult than onshore because observations are typically limited to land-based seismic networks and infrequent shipboard surveys. Since the first recorded eruption in 1939, the Kick-‘em-Jenny (KeJ) volcano, located 8km off northern Grenada, has been the source of 13 episodes of T-phase signals. These distinctive seismic signals, often coincident with heightened body-wave seismicity, are interpreted as extrusive eruptions. They have occurred with a recurrence interval of around a decade, yet direct confirmation of volcanism has been rare. By conducting new bathymetric surveys in 2016 and 2017 and reprocessing 4 legacy datasets spanning 30 years we present a clearer picture of the development of KeJ through time. Processed grids with a cell size of 5m and vertical precision on the order of 1-4m allow us to correlate T-phase episodes with morphological changes at the volcano's edifice. In the time-period of observation 7.09x106 m3 of material has been added through constructive volcanism – yet 5 times this amount has been lost through landslides. Limited recent magma production suggests that KeJ may be susceptible to larger eruptions with longer repeat times than have occurred during the study interval, behavior more similar to sub-aerial volcanism in the arc than previously thought. T-phase signals at KeJ have a varied origin and are unlikely to be solely the result of extrusive submarine eruptions. Our results confirm the value of repeat swath bathymetry surveys in assessing submarine volcanic hazards

DNA methylation and methyl-CpG binding proteins: developmental requirements and function

DNA methylation is a major epigenetic modification in the genomes of higher eukaryotes. In vertebrates, DNA methylation occurs predominantly on the CpG dinucleotide, and approximately 60% to 90% of these dinucleotides are modified. Distinct DNA methylation patterns, which can vary between different tissues and developmental stages, exist on specific loci. Sites of DNA methylation are occupied by various proteins, including methyl-CpG binding domain (MBD) proteins which recruit the enzymatic machinery to establish silent chromatin. Mutations in the MBD family member MeCP2 are the cause of Rett syndrome, a severe neurodevelopmental disorder, whereas other MBDs are known to bind sites of hypermethylation in human cancer cell lines. Here, we review the advances in our understanding of the function of DNA methylation, DNA methyltransferases, and methyl-CpG binding proteins in vertebrate embryonic development. MBDs function in transcriptional repression and long-range interactions in chromatin and also appear to play a role in genomic stability, neural signaling, and transcriptional activation. DNA methylation makes an essential and versatile epigenetic contribution to genome integrity and function

The Evolution of the Silver Hills Volcanic Center, and Revised 40Ar/39Ar Geochronology of Montserrat, Lesser Antilles, With Implications for Island Arc Volcanism

Studying the older volcanic centers on Montserrat, Centre Hills and Silver Hills, may reveal how volcanic activity can change over long time periods (≥1 Myr), and whether the recent activity at the Soufrière Hills is typical of volcanism throughout Montserrat's history. Here, we present the first detailed mapping of the Silver Hills, the oldest and arguably least studied volcanic center on Montserrat. Volcanism at the Silver Hills was dominated by episodic andesite lava dome growth and collapse, produced Vulcanian style eruptions, and experienced periodic sector collapse events, similar to the style of volcanic activity that has been documented for the Centre Hills and Soufrière Hills. We also present an updated geochronology of volcanism on Montserrat, by revising existing ages and obtaining new 40Ar/39Ar dates and palaeomagnetic ages from marine tephra layers. We show that the centers of the Silver, Centre, and Soufrière Hills were active during at least ∼2.17–1.03 Ma, ∼1.14–0.38 Ma, and ∼0.45 Ma–present, respectively. Combined with timings of volcanism on Basse-Terre, Guadeloupe these ages suggest that ∼0.5–1 Ma is a common lifespan for volcanic centers in the Lesser Antilles. These new dates identify a previously unrecognized overlap in activity between the different volcanic centers, which appears to be a common phenomenon in island arcs. We also identify an older stage of Soufrière Hills activity ∼450–290 ka characterized by the eruption of hornblende-orthopyroxene-phyric lavas, demonstrating that the petrology of the Soufrière Hills eruptive products has changed at least twice throughout the volcano's development