Hydrothermal venting on the Juan de Fuca Ridge over the last 600,000 years

Abstract:

Mid-ocean ridges provide a unique chemical, physical, and biological environment on the seafloor. They are a significant source of dissolved Fe, a critical micronutrient in the ocean, and they are a primary source of CO₂ from the mantle, Earth’s largest carbon reservoir. Although more than a hundred modern hydrothermal systems have been discovered, few records of their variation through geological time have been obtained. Sediments near ocean ridges hold the potential to provide such records, and here we investigate sediments near the Juan de Fuca Ridge through continuous XRF scans coupled with oxygen isotope temporal constraints to explore hydrothermal activity over the past 600,000 years. These are the first records over multiple glacial-interglacial cycles and permit investigation of potential feedbacks between glacial-interglacial climate change and hydrothermal activity.

Today, hydrothermal activity on the Juan de Fuca Ridge is characterized by hydrothermal particles with high concentrations of Fe, Cu, and Zn (Feely et. al., 1987). Over longer time scales, Fe concentrations are positively correlated with Ti (r²≥0.75), so that the dominant variability in Fe is due to the input of lithogenic material. Additional Fe inputs from hydrothermal activity increase the Fe/Ti ratio above the lithogenic value of 11.7 wt%/wt%. Intense hydrothermal activity (Fe/Ti > 25 wt%/wt%) is observed on the Juan de Fuca Ridge from ~375-430ka, and less intense but still elevated hydrothermal activity (Fe/Ti > 17 wt%/wt%) recurs at near 100kyr cyclicity, from 80-120ka, 180-220ka, 290-330ka, and 470-520ka. These time periods correspond to times of sea level fall owing to expanding ice volume, supporting a link between sea level changes and ridge crest activity