Assessing Hydrothermal Contributions to Global Biogeochemial Cycles; Insights From the Macquarie Island Ophiolite

Abstract:

Hydrothermal circulation is an important component of global biogeochemical cycles. Chemical exchange between seawater and the ocean crust affects the composition of the oceans, the ocean crust, and via subduction the composition and heterogeneity of the mantle. Despite 50 years of scientific ocean drilling, the ultimate goal of drilling a continuous in-situ section through the entire ocean crust has not yet been achieved. The absence of complete oceanic crustal sections makes full quantification of the hydrothermal contributions to global geochemical cycles difficult. In particular, our knowledge of the nature and extent of fluid-rock interaction in the lower crust is limited by the absence of accessible submarine exposures or drill core.

Macquarie Island, approximately 1500 km south of New Zealand, is the only sub-aerial exposure of a complete section of ocean crust in the ocean basin in which it formed. The crust formed during a phase of slow spreading along a short segment of mid-ocean ridge ~11 Myr ago and was uplifted during recent transpression along the Pacific Australian plate boundary. Hydrothermally altered rocks from Macquarie Island therefore provide a time-integrated record of the chemical changes due to fluid-rock exchange through a complete section of ocean crust.

We exploit the immobile behavior of some elements during hydrothermal alteration to determine the precursor compositions to altered Macquarie whole rock samples, and then evaluate the changes in bulk rock chemistry due to fluid-rock interaction throughout the Macquarie crust. We combine these data with stratigraphic reconstructions through the Macquarie crust to determine its net hydrothermal contributions to global geochemical cycles. The Macquarie crust was a net sink for Mn, Mg, Na, K, Cs and Ba and a net source of Fe, Ca, Cu and Sr to the oceans.

To assess the role of hydrothermal circulation in global geochemical cycles we compare the calculated Macquarie hydrothermal fluxes to published estimates of the hydrothermal contributions from (i) drilled sections of in-situ upper ocean crust produced at slow, intermediate and fast spreading rates and of differing crustal ages; and (ii) supra-subduction zone ophiolites, which consistently record a greater extent of fluid-rock exchange than crust from mid-ocean ridges.