Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems

doi: 10.1002/ggge.20838pmid: N/A

Chang, Chandong; Song, Insun

doi: 10.1002/2016GC006562pmid: N/A

We constrain the state of stress to 2 km below seafloor in the Nankai accretionary prism at the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) site C0002F, southwest Japan, based on borehole wall failures and rock strengths. The logging‐while‐drilling resistivity images from 872.5 to 2005.5 m below seafloor show that drilling‐mud control in riser drilling worked properly to minimize borehole wall failures. Available breakouts indicate a consistent maximum compression orientation subparallel to the subducting plate margin. Breakout analysis with drill logs suggests that breakouts occurred only when borehole pressure was slightly lowered and time lag between hole cutting and image logging was several hours. This indicates that the observed breakouts are not immediate stress‐induced failure but brought up into shape gradually with time due to other mechanisms. Laboratory investigations on deformation and failure of the cores suggest that the time‐delayed breakout might be a result of progressive rock spall‐out in borehole wall damage zones that occur at a stress level close to failure condition. We constrain stress magnitudes assuming that the stress state is sufficient to bring about the damage zones at the borehole wall. An integrated method utilizing breakouts, drilling‐induced tensile fractures, and a leak‐off test suggests that the stress states are on the boundary between strike‐slip faulting and normal faulting stress regimes, and somewhat variable depending on depth. The stress magnitudes in the accretionary wedge appear to be controlled by frictional strength of the rock, such that the differential stresses are constrained by the laboratory determined frictional coefficients.

Tork Qashqai, Mehdi; Carlos Afonso, Juan; Yang, Yingjie

doi: 10.1002/2016GC006463pmid: N/A

The Arizona Transition Zone is a narrow band that separates two of the main and most contrasting tectonic provinces in western US, namely the southern Colorado Plateau and the southern Basin and Range provinces. As such, the internal crustal structure and physical state of this transitional zone hold clues for understanding (i) the amalgamation of these provinces, (ii) the partitioning of deformation due to both past and present‐day stress fields, and (iii) the role of thermal versus compositional effects in controlling surface observables. Here we employ and expand a novel multiobservable probabilistic inversion method and jointly invert fundamental mode Rayleigh phase velocities, receiver functions, surface heat flow, geoid height, and absolute elevation to obtain an internally consistent 3‐D model of the temperature, density, Vs, and Vp of the Arizona Transition Zone and the southern portions of the Colorado Plateau and Basin and Range. Our results confirm a significant crustal thickening from ∼28 km in the SW of the Arizona Transition Zone and southern Basin and Range to ∼48 km beneath the southern Colorado Plateau. Inverted temperatures agree well with the location of recent volcanism and indicate that the lithosphere‐asthenosphere boundary is not deeper than ∼70 km in most of the region. We find that major pre‐Cambrian surface structures and/or shear zones separate crustal domains with distinct bulk properties, suggesting that the juxtaposed crustal blocks still retain, at least in part, their original characteristics. However, widespread intrusions of significant volumes of mafic magmas have affected these blocks at different depths, locally overprinting their original compositions and creating highly heterogeneous crustal sections. A dominant and large‐scale internal crustal pattern of SW dipping planes/structures is evident in our models, coinciding with the orientation of deep faults previously inferred from earthquake focal mechanisms. While we cannot categorically corroborate the presence of melt or aqueous fluids within the crust, our results are compatible with these scenarios beneath some parts of the Basin and Range, the Mogollon‐Datil, and Springerville volcanic fields.

Ruppel, Carolyn D.; Herman, Bruce M.; Brothers, Laura L.; Hart, Patrick E.

doi: 10.1002/2016GC006582pmid: N/A

Borehole logging data from legacy wells directly constrain the contemporary distribution of subsea permafrost in the sedimentary section at discrete locations on the U.S. Beaufort Margin and complement recent regional analyses of exploration seismic data to delineate the permafrost's offshore extent. Most usable borehole data were acquired on a ∼500 km stretch of the margin and within 30 km of the contemporary coastline from north of Lake Teshekpuk to nearly the U.S.‐Canada border. Relying primarily on deep resistivity logs that should be largely unaffected by drilling fluids and hole conditions, the analysis reveals the persistence of several hundred vertical meters of ice‐bonded permafrost in nearshore wells near Prudhoe Bay and Foggy Island Bay, with less permafrost detected to the east and west. Permafrost is inferred beneath many barrier islands and in some nearshore and lagoonal (back‐barrier) wells. The analysis of borehole logs confirms the offshore pattern of ice‐bearing subsea permafrost distribution determined based on regional seismic analyses and reveals that ice content generally diminishes with distance from the coastline. Lacking better well distribution, it is not possible to determine the absolute seaward extent of ice‐bearing permafrost, nor the distribution of permafrost beneath the present‐day continental shelf at the end of the Pleistocene. However, the recovery of gas hydrate from an outer shelf well (Belcher) and previous delineation of a log signature possibly indicating gas hydrate in an inner shelf well (Hammerhead 2) imply that permafrost may once have extended across much of the shelf offshore Camden Bay.

Brothers, Laura L.; Herman, Bruce M.; Hart, Patrick E.; Ruppel, Carolyn D.

doi: 10.1002/2016GC006584pmid: N/A

Subsea ice‐bearing permafrost (IBPF) and associated gas hydrate in the Arctic have been subject to a warming climate and saline intrusion since the last transgression at the end of the Pleistocene. The consequent degradation of IBPF is potentially associated with significant degassing of dissociating gas hydrate deposits. Previous studies interpreted the distribution of subsea permafrost on the U.S. Beaufort continental shelf based on geographically sparse data sets and modeling of expected thermal history. The most cited work projects subsea permafrost to the shelf edge (∼100 m isobath). This study uses a compilation of stacking velocity analyses from ∼100,000 line‐km of industry‐collected multichannel seismic reflection data acquired over 57,000 km2 of the U.S. Beaufort shelf to delineate continuous subsea IBPF. Gridded average velocities of the uppermost 750 ms two‐way travel time range from 1475 to 3110 m s−1. The monotonic, cross‐shore pattern in velocity distribution suggests that the seaward extent of continuous IBPF is within 37 km of the modern shoreline at water depths < 25 m. These interpretations corroborate recent Beaufort seismic refraction studies and provide the best, margin‐scale evidence that continuous subsea IBPF does not currently extend to the northern limits of the continental shelf.

Wang, Xilong; Du, Jinzhou

doi: 10.1002/2016GC006502pmid: N/A

Assessing submarine groundwater discharge (SGD) into lagoons and bays can be helpful to understand biogeochemical processes, especially nutrient dynamics. In the present paper, radium (Ra) isotopes were used to quantify SGD in two typical tropical lagoons (Laoye Lagoon (LY Lagoon) and Xiaohai Lagoon (XH Lagoon)) of eastern Hainan Island, China. The Ra mass balance model provided evidence that SGD plays an important role in the hydrology of the LY Lagoon and the XH Lagoon, delivering average SGD fluxes of 1.7 × 106 (94 L m−2 d−1) and 1.8 × 106 (41 L m−2 d−1) m3 d−1, respectively. Tidal pumping was one of the important driving forces for SGD fluxes in the LY and the XH Lagoons. Tidal‐driven SGD into the tidal channels of both lagoons can account for approximately 10% of the total SGD flux into the lagoons. In addition, the dissolved inorganic nutrient budgets were reassessed in the LY Lagoon and the XH Lagoon, which showed that SGD was the major source of nutrients entering the LY Lagoon and that the LY Lagoon behaved as a source for dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN) and dissolved inorganic phosphorus (DIP) and as a sink for dissolved silicate (DSi). Nutrient loads in the XH Lagoon were mainly derived from riverine inputs and SGD, and the XH Lagoon behaved as a source for DIP, but a sink for DIN and DSi.

Chang, Liao; Bolton, Clara T.; Dekkers, Mark J.; Hayashida, Akira; Heslop, David; Krijgsman, Wout; Kodama, Kazuto; Paterson, Greig A.; Roberts, Andrew P.; Rohling, Eelco J.; Yamamoto, Yuhji; Zhao, Xiang

doi:

Yamazaki, Toshitsugu; Horiuchi, Kazuho

doi: 10.1002/2016GC006446pmid: N/A

The Western Pacific Warm Pool plays a significant role in large‐scale atmospheric circulation and global hydrology. We conducted an environmental magnetic study of two late Pleistocene sediment cores from the western equatorial Pacific Ocean offshore of New Guinea in order to better constrain climatic and oceanographic variability, particularly spatiotemporal ocean productivity variations. Magnetic property measurements and transmission electron microscopy reveal that the magnetic mineral assemblages in the studied sediments are a mixture of biogenic and terrigenous magnetite. Variations in the acid soluble sediment component, interpreted as carbonate content, and the proportion of biogenic to terrigenous magnetite estimated from the ratio of anhysteretic to saturation remanent magnetizations are in‐phase with northern hemisphere summer insolation variations. We interpret that ocean productivity increased during insolation maxima, which induced higher populations of magnetotactic bacteria through a larger nutrient supply to the seafloor. This interpretation assumes that magnetotactic bacterial populations are greatest in sediments just below the seafloor. Precessional frequencies in magnetic mineral concentration variations are suppressed after correction for carbonate dilution, whereas cyclic changes with a ∼100 kyr periodicity remain in carbonate‐free magnetic concentration variations. Glacial/interglacial changes in bottom water currents may have influenced transportation and deposition of magnetic minerals. We demonstrate the usefulness of magnetic proxies for paleoceanographic studies, particularly of biogenic magnetite proxies for estimating paleoproductivity variations.

Honsho, Chie; Yamazaki, Toshitsugu; Ura, Tamaki; Okino, Kyoko; Morozumi, Haruhisa; Ueda, Satoshi

doi: 10.1002/2016GC006480pmid: N/A

We report here results from a deep‐sea magnetic survey using an autonomous underwater vehicle over the Hakurei hydrothermal site, in the middle Okinawa Trough. Magnetic inversion revealed that the Hakurei site is associated with well‐defined high‐magnetization zones distributed within a broad low‐magnetization zone. Results from rock magnetic measurements, performed on sulfide ore samples obtained by drilling, showed that some samples possessed extremely high natural remanent magnetization (NRM) (as much as 6.8–953.0 A/m), although most of the measured samples had much lower NRM. These high‐NRM samples were characterized by high Königsberger ratios (101−103), indicating much larger NRM than induced magnetization, and contained pyrrhotite as the only magnetic mineral. This suggests that NRM carried by pyrrhotite is the source of the observed magnetic anomalies. The wide range of NRM intensity was considered to be due to a highly heterogeneous distribution of pyrrhotite, because pyrrhotite was commonly identified in both the high‐NRM and low‐NRM samples. Pyrrhotite production may have been occasionally drastically increased, with highly magnetic ores formed as a result. Rapid burial of active vents may result in the creation of an extensive reducing environment under the seafloor, which is favorable to pyrrhotite production, and may also prevent oxidation of pyrrhotite by isolating it from seawater. Because the magnetization intensity of sulfide ores was highly variable, it would not be straightforward to estimate the quantity of ore deposits from the magnetic anomalies. Nevertheless, this study demonstrates the usefulness of magnetic surveys in detecting hydrothermal deposits.

Sim, Shi J.; Stegman, Dave R.; Coltice, Nicolas

doi: 10.1002/2016GC006629pmid: N/A

The interconnectedness of life, water, and plate tectonics is strikingly apparent along mid‐ocean ridges (MOR) where communities of organisms flourish off the disequilibrium of chemical potentials created by circulation of hydrothermal fluids driven by Earth's heat. Moreover, submarine hydrothermal environments may be critical for the emergence of life on Earth. Oceans were likely present in the Hadean but questions remain about early Earth's global tectonics, including when seafloor spreading began and whether mid‐oceanic ridges were deep enough for maximum hydrothermal activities. For example, plate tectonics influences global sea level by driving secular variations in the volume of ocean basins due to continental growth. Similarly, variations in the distribution of seafloor age and associated subsidence, due to assembly and dispersal of supercontinents, explain the largest sea level variation over the past 140 Myr. Using synthetic plate configurations derived from numerical models of mantle convection appropriate for early Earth, we show that MOR have remained submerged and their depths potentially constant over geologic time. Thus, conditions in the early Earth existed for hydrothermal vents at similar depths as today, providing environments conducive for the development of life and allowing for processes such as hydrothermal alteration of oceanic crust to influence the mantle's geochemical evolution.