Diversity of Hydrothermal Systems on Slow Spreading Ocean Ridges

Editors: Peter A. Rona, Colin W. Devey, Jérôme Dyment, and Bramley J. Murton 

Cover Photo:Vent shrimp Rimicaris exoculata Williams and Rona, 1986, swarming on an active black smoker chimney in the TAG hydrothermal field on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge neat latitude 26 degrees North. Photo credit: IMAX film Volcanoes of the Deep Sea, produced by The Stephen Low Company. Reproduced with permission.

When hydrothermal systems were first found on the East Pacific Rise and other Pacific Ocean ridges beginning in the late 1970s, the community consensus held that the magma delivery rate of intermediate to fast spreading was necessary to support black smoker-type high-temperature systems and associated chemosynthetic ecosystems and polymetallic sulfide deposits.

Contrary to that consensus, hydrothermal systems not only occur on slow spreading ocean ridges but, as reported in this volume, are generally larger and spaced farther apart, exhibit different chemosynthetic ecosystems, produce larger mineral deposits, and occur in a much greater diversity of geologic settings than those systems in the Pacific.

The full diversity of hydrothermal systems on slow spreading ocean ridges, reflected in the contributions to this volume, is only now emerging and opens an exciting new frontier for ocean ridge exploration, including: 

• Processes of heat transfer from the Earth’s mantle via slow spreading ocean ridges to the oceans
• Processes of chemical transfer
• Exploration methods
• Arctic and Icelandic hydrothermal systems
• Hydrothermal systems on slow and ultraslow spreading systems in the Atlantic and southwest Indian oceans
• The major role of detachment faulting involving crust and mantle in hydrothermal circulation
• Chemical reaction products of mantle involvement including sepentinization, abiotic methane, and hydrocarbon synthesis
• Generation of large polymetallic sulfide deposits hosted in ocean crust and mantle
• Chemosynthetic vent communities hosted in the diverse settings

The readership for this volume will include schools, universities, government labs, and scientific societies in developed and developing nations, including over 150 nations that have ratified the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Geophysical Monograph Series, Volume 188, 350 pp., hardbound, 2010, ISBN 978-0-87590-478-8, AGU Code GM1884788
AGU Member Price - $ 90.00 | Nonmember Price - $ 129.00 | AGU Student Member Price - $ 90.00
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