New Frontiers in Arctic Exploration: Autonomous Location and Sampling of Hydrothermal Vents Under the Ice at Earth's Slowest Spreading Ridge (IPY Project 173)

Details New Frontiers in Arctic Exploration: Autonomous Location and Sampling of Hydrothermal Vents Under the Ice at Earth's Slowest Spreading Ridge (IPY Project 173) New Frontiers in Arctic Exploration: Autonomous Location and Sampling of Hydrothermal Vents Under the Ice at Earth's Slowest Spreading Ridge (IPY Project 173)

Dec 2006

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006agufm.u14c..05e&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2006, abstract #U14C-05

Other

0456 Life In Extreme Environments, 0805 Elementary And Secondary Education, 3017 Hydrothermal Systems (0450, 1034, 3616, 4832, 8135, 8424), 3035 Midocean Ridge Processes, 3080 Submergence Instruments: Rov, Auv, Submersibles

Scientific paper

As part of IPY project #173, we are planning an international expedition for 2007 to locate and study hydrothermal vents on the ultraslow-spreading Gakkel Ridge, at depths greater than 4000 m beneath the permanent ice cap. This effort necessitates the development of novel exploration technologies, because the Gakkel Ridge rift valley is inaccessible to traditional deep submergence tools. With funding from NASA, NSF, and the private sector we have developed two new autonomous underwater vehicles that will find and map hydrothermal plumes in the water column, trace the buoyant plume stem to the seafloor source, and then map, photograph, and collect samples from the vent sites. The Gakkel Ridge is a key target for hydrothermal exploration not only because of its spreading rate but also because its geographic and hydrographic isolation from other portions of the mid-ocean ridge system have important implications for novel endemic vent fauna. Our major scientific themes are the geological diversity and biogeography of hydrothermal vents on the Arctic mid-ocean ridge system. Our major technology theme is autonomous exploration and sample return with an explicit mandate to develop techniques and methods for eventual use in astrobiology missions to search for life under the ice covered oceans of Europa, a moon of Jupiter. In addition to the US-led Gakkel Ridge expedition, a Norway-led expedition will target sites in seasonally ice-free water over the Mohns Ridge. The results of these two expeditions will be combined to reveal systematic patterns regarding biogeography (through both community-level and genetic-level investigations) of vent-endemic fauna, to study the differences between basalt vs. peridotite hosted vent fields, and to improve our understanding of hydrothermal circulation at ultra- slow spreading plate boundaries where amagmatic extension and long-lived faulting predominate. The expeditions will provide educational and outreach activities through the award-winning Dive and Discover (www.divediscover.whoi.edu) web site.

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