Other
Scientific paper
Dec 2001
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2001agufmos31d..11d&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2001, abstract #OS31D-11
Other
4294 Instruments And Techniques, 9805 Instruments Useful In Three Or More Fields, 9810 New Fields (Not Classifiable Under Other Headings)
Scientific paper
One of the most compelling questions in planetary science today focuses on identifying and quantifying the linkages among a host of plate-tectonic processes and microbial productivity near the seafloor and within the Earth's crust. Deformational and thermal processes that operate most intensely near plate margins and less intensely within plate interiors, result in forced fluid migration within the crust and between the crust and overlying ocean. These fluid fluxes may be steady state, episodic, or both. Whether operating at spreading centers, in mid-plate, within subduction complexes, or along transform faults the moving fluids transfer heat and chemically active organic and inorganic compounds that provide nutritional support for widespread poorly understood microbial biosphere. Oceanographers have considerable experience studying photosynthetically supported ocean productivity and its dependence on mass and energy fluxes across the air-sea interface near the top of the ocean. We are unskilled at assessing the importance of fluid-driven, plate-modulated productivity linked to mass and energy fluxes across the water-rock interface at the bottom of the ocean. Unlike the predictably distributed character of irradiance and gas-liquid exchange at the upper-ocean boundary, the input of crustally derived, chemosynthetically active compounds near the base of the ocean tends to be localized along faults, fissures, and other venting structures at a variety of scales and in patterns that cannot be predicted, but must be identified. This tectonically forced fluid-expulsion/microbial-bloom theme represents a generalizable, new class of geobiological processes that operate steadily and episodically in a seasonal rhythm attuned to plate dynamics. Understanding where, how, when, and why these features channel nutrient-laden fluids from the crust into the overlying ocean requires new approaches within the ocean sciences. Focusing on these processes at the scale of a single plate will give rise to a new class of research designed to conduct quantitative plate-scale studies of heat, chemical, and biomass fluxes within a well-defined plate-tectonic framework. Such an effort would be the basis for launching a deep-sea, long-term ecological study of plate-modulated biogeocomplexity. The local, regional, and global importance and pervasiveness of these processes on earth and on other active, water-bearing planets will be major focus of research for decades.
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