Hydrological response to a seafloor spreading episode on the Juan de Fuca ridge

Earl Davis (), Keir Becker, Robert Dziak, John Cassidy, Kelin Wang and Marvin Lilley
Additional contact information
Earl Davis: Pacific Geoscience Centre, Geological Survey of Canada
Keir Becker: University of Miami
Robert Dziak: Oregon State University/NOAA
John Cassidy: Pacific Geoscience Centre, Geological Survey of Canada
Kelin Wang: Pacific Geoscience Centre, Geological Survey of Canada
Marvin Lilley: University of Washington

Nature, 2004, vol. 430, issue 6997, 335-338

Abstract: Abstract Seafloor hydrothermal systems are known to respond to seismic and magmatic activity along mid-ocean ridges, often resulting in locally positive changes in hydrothermal discharge rate, temperature and microbial activity, and shifts in composition occurring at the time of earthquake swarms and axial crustal dike injections1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10. Corresponding regional effects have also been observed11. Here we present observations of a hydrological response to seafloor spreading activity, which resulted in a negative formation-fluid pressure transient during and after an earthquake swarm in the sediment-sealed igneous crust of the Middle Valley rift of the northernmost Juan de Fuca ridge. The observations were made with a borehole seal and hydrologic observatory originally established in 1991 to study the steady-state pressure and temperature conditions in this hydrothermally active area12,13. The magnitude of the co-seismic response is consistent with the elastic strain that would be expected from the associated earthquakes, but the prolonged negative pressure transient after the swarm is surprising and suggests net co-seismic dilatation of the upper, permeable igneous crust. The rift valley was visited four weeks after the onset of the seismic activity, but no signature of increased hydrothermal activity was detected in the water column. It appears that water, not magma, filled the void left by this spreading episode.

Date: 2004
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature02755 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:430:y:2004:i:6997:d:10.1038_nature02755

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/nature02755

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().