Seafloor hydrothermal vents, also known as black chimneys (featured image; Copyright: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution), produce valuable mineral resources through fluid-rock reactions beneath the seafloor – a process called hydrothermal alteration. On basaltic ocean crust, hydrothermally-altered regions are generally found to be less magnetic, which provides a way to detect seafloor hydrothermal vents. By collaborating with Prof. Chunhui Tao group from the Second Institute of Oceanography, we analyzed a large set of rock samples recovered from the Southwest Indian Ridge. Results were recently published in Geophysical Research Letters (Wang et al., 2020; https://doi.org/10.1029/2020GL087578) that discloses the detailed alteration pathway in hydrothermal vent hosting mid-ocean ridge.
Read More “Unravelling hydrothermal alteration in basaltic ocean crust”