The title is from Columbia, and I should point out that this discovery on the Pacific Antarctic Ridge is 2800 miles from tip of the Antarctic peninsula, where volcanic activity is already well known. Examples are found at Deception Island and within the Bransfield strait. These two images I’ve prepared below (click to enlarge them) will give you a “lay of the land” so to speak.
I think it would be illuminating to send ROV’s under some of the newly opened sea surface that was exposed when sea ice near the peninsula broke off to see if vents exist there also.
========================================================
Discovery, a First, Could Spur Exploration of Distant Mid-Ocean Ridge
From a Columbia University press release:
Scientists at Columbia’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory have found evidence of hydrothermal vents on the seafloor near Antarctica, formerly a blank spot on the map for researchers wanting to learn more about seafloor formation and the bizarre life forms drawn to these extreme environments.
Hydrothermal vents spew volcanically heated seawater from the planet’s underwater mountain ranges—the vast mid-ocean ridge system, where lava erupts and new crust forms. Chemicals dissolved in those vents influence ocean chemistry and sustain a complex web of organisms, much as sunlight does on land. In recent decades more than 220 vents have been discovered worldwide, but so far no one has looked for them in the rough and frigid waters off Antarctica.
From her lab in Palisades, N.Y., geochemist Gisela Winckler recently took up the search. By analyzing thousands of oceanographic measurements, she and her Lamont colleagues pinpointed six spots on the remote Pacific Antarctic Ridge, about 2,000 miles from New Zealand, the closest inhabited country, and 1,000 miles from the west coast of Antarctica, where they think vents are likely to be found. The sites are described in a paper published THIS WEEK in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
“Most of the deep ocean is like a desert, but these vents are oases of life and weirdness,” said Winckler. “The Pacific Antarctic ridge is one of the ridges we know least about. It would be fantastic if researchers were to dive to the seafloor to study the vents we believe are there.”
Two important facts helped the scientists isolate the hidden vents. First, the ocean is stratified with layers of lighter water sitting on top of layers of denser water. Second, when a seafloor vent erupts, it spews gases rich in rare helium-3, an isotope found in earth’s mantle and in the magma bubbling below the vent. As helium-3 disperses through the ocean, it mixes into a density layer and stays there, forming a plume that can stretch over thousands of kilometers.
The Lamont scientists were analyzing ocean-helium measurements to study how the deep ocean exchanges dissolved gases with the atmosphere when they came across a helium plume that looked out of place. It was in a southern portion of the Pacific Ocean, below a large and well-known helium plume coming off the East Pacific Rise, one of the best-studied vent regions on earth. But this mystery plume appeared too deep to have the same source.
Suspecting that it was coming from the Pacific Antarctic Ridge instead, the researchers compiled a detailed map of ocean-density layers in that region, using some 25,000 salinity, temperature and depth measurements. After locating the helium plume along a single density layer, they compared the layer to topographic maps of the Pacific Antarctic Ridge to figure out where the plume would intersect.
The sites they identified cover 340 miles of ridge line–the approximate distance between Manhattan and Richmond, Va.–or about 7 percent of the total 4,300 mile-ridge. This chain of volcanic mountains lies about three miles below the ocean surface, and its mile-high peaks are cut by steep canyons and fracture zones created as the sea floor spreads apart. It is a cold and lonely stretch of ocean, far from land or commercial shipping lanes.
“They haven’t found vents, but they’ve narrowed the places to look by quite a bit,” said Edward Baker, a vent expert at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Of course, finding vents in polar waters is not easy, even with a rough idea where to look. In 2007, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution geophysicist Rob Reves-Sohn led a team of scientists to the Gakkel Ridge between Greenland and Siberia to look for vents detected six years earlier. Although they discovered regions where warm fluids appeared to be seeping from the seafloor, they failed to find the high-temperature, black smoker vents they had come for. In a pending paper, Sohn now says he has narrowed down the search to a 400-kilometer-square area where he expects to find seven new vents, including at least one black smoker.
The search for vents off Antarctica may be equally unpredictable, but the map produced by the Lamont scientists should greatly improve the odds of success, said Robert Newton, a Lamont oceanographer and study co-author. “You don’t have to land right on top of a vent to know it’s there,” he said. “You get a rich mineral soup coming out of these smokers—methane, iron, manganese, sulphur and many other minerals. Once you get within a few tens of kilometers, you can detect these other tracers.”
Since the discovery of the first hydrothermal vents in the late 1970s, scientists have searched for far-flung sites, in the hunt for new species and adaptive patterns that can shed light on how species evolved in different spots. Cindy Van Dover, a deep sea biologist and director of the Duke University Marine Laboratory, says she expects that new species will be found on the Pacific Antarctic Ridge, and that this region may hold important clues about how creatures vary between the Indian and Pacific Oceans, on either end.
“These vents are living laboratories,” said Van Dover, who was not involved in the study. “When we went to the Indian Ocean, we discovered the scaly-foot gastropod, a deep-sea snail whose foot is covered in armor made of iron sulfides. The military may be interested in studying the snail to develop a better armor. The adaptations found in these animals may have many other applications.”
Other study authors include Peter Schlosser, head of Lamont’s Environmental Tracer Group and Lamont marine geologist Timothy Crone.
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…You get a rich mineral soup coming out of these smokers—methane…
Methane a mineral? Surely a new geological classification! That’s the fun with Climate Science; you can make rules up as you go along!
Elements, Organic compounds, or minerals, what’s the difference between a few well connected Peers!
Henry chance (18:02:19) : You wrote, “I posted on this a year ago. With the ring of fire and the PDO, it is easy for warmer water to enter the arctic.”
The PDO does not represent the SST at the entrance to the Bering Strait from the Bering Sea. The PDO also does not represent the SST of the North Pacific. The PDO represents the pattern of the SST anomalies in the North Pacific. Refer to:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/04/misunderstandings-about-pdo-revised.html
AND:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/05/revisiting-misunderstandings-about-pdo.html
Carla (04:44:42) :
“Isn’t the Australian plate the fastest moving plate on the planet, and opposite the South Atlantic Anamoly, too?”
Good point Carla.
Sweep was done at 60S because I found that there is an area (60S, 130E) of constant field (not found in many locations on the Earth’s surface).
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC12.htm
If you look at this map of tectonic plates:
http://www.countrywatch.com/imgs/global_thematic/Tectonic_Plates.gif
60S, 130E is half way between the Indo-Australian plate and Antarctica. Another interesting point is that the above map also shows tiny Scotia plate, precisely in the area of the largest magnetic anomaly, as shown in the article:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/bransfield_strait.jpg
Methane as a “factor,” in climate change, oh sure. Sea surface temps as a “factor,” oh sure.
~
vukcevic (00:46:06) :
~
Have you read this one yet?
As the World Churns
“”By combining measurements of Earth’s magnetic field from stations on land and ships at sea with satellite data, scientists were able to isolate six regularly occurring waves of motion taking place deep within Earth’s liquid core, with varying timescales. Image credit: NASA/JPL
..Getting to the Core of the Matter
Since Earth’s liquid core is the primary source of Earth’s magnetic field, scientists can use observations of the magnetic field at Earth’s surface and its variability over time to mathematically calculate and isolate the approximate motions taking place within the core.
That’s what Dickey and deViron did. They combined measurements of Earth’s magnetic field taken by observatory stations on land and ships at sea dating back to 1840 with those of the Danish Oersted and German CHAMP geomagnetic satellite missions, both of which were supported by NASA investments. These measurements were then used as inputs for a complex model that employs statistical time series analyses to determine how fast liquid iron is flowing within Earth’s core.
“Although we do not observe the core directly, it’s amazing how much we can learn about Earth’s interior using magnetic field observations,” said Dickey.
In order to approximate the flow of liquid in the core, the scientists visualized its motion as a set of 20 rigid cylinders, each rotating about a common point that represents Earth’s axis. “Imagine that each cylinder is slowly rotating at a different speed, and you’ll get a sense of the complex churning that’s taking place within Earth’s core,” Dickey said.
The scientists analyzed the data to identify common patterns of movement among the different cylinders. These patterns represent how momentum and energy are transferred from the liquid core-mantle interface inward through the liquid core toward the inner core with diminishing amplitudes.
Their analyses isolated six slow-moving oscillations, or waves of motion, occurring within the liquid core. The oscillations originated at the boundary between Earth’s core and its mantle and traveled inward toward the inner core with decreasing strength. Four of these oscillations were robust, occurring at periods of 85, 50, 35 and 28 years. Since the scientist’s data set goes back to 1840, the recurrence period of the longest oscillation (85 years) is less well determined than the other oscillations. The last two oscillations identified were weaker and will require further study. .””
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/features.cfm?feature=2420
vukcevic etc (05:13:06)
map of tectonic plates
http://media.maps.com/magellan/Images/tectonic.gif
@Bulldust (16:52:43) :
“O/T but interesting – I see there are 50 ships stuck in ice in the Baltic:
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/50-ships-stuck-in-ice-20100305-pmbi.html
They say they haven’t seen this many ships stuck in ice since the mid-1980s.”
Strangely, there hasn’t been much comment on this on the British Media. Six ferries, 1841 stranded passengers – you’d have thought it would have been headlines, just as it was when the “North East Passage was open for shipping” for the first time ever:-
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/10/07/the-surprising-real-story-about-this-years-northeast-passage-transit/
After all, as we all now understand that ice is caused by cold and that cold winters are caused by Anthropogenic Global Warming, then surely this is something the media and the politicians might use to frighten the kids?
No?
Only trying to help.
Hummm…
What if the tidal forces moved to new places on the globe as the earth wobbles on its axis over time?
“These vents are three miles down and surrounded by a LOT of cold water. I doubt that the heat they supply warms the ocean significantly, just as the heat emitted by active but quiescent volcanoes does not significantly warm the atmosphere. Of course when they erupt it would be a very different story. But these vents are usually surrounded by life evolved specifically to survive there, which means they have been stable and quiescent for a very long time.
”
But it points out another thermal input into the environment that the AGW models certainly don’t take into account. An unknown amount of heat can be added to the oceans at any given time, or suddenly go away if they get plugged. But, as we know, every energy input to the environment is constant except man, right?
”
Yes hot water melts ice. But there isn’t much ice three miles down (Ice floats, right? RIGHT!?!?!). And by the time you get to the surface you would hardly be able to detect the amount of heating, let alone melt ice with it.e
”
As indetectable as 1 degree in a hundred years? 🙂
Interesting, I would have guessed some sort of multi-drop sonar processing – not dissolved gases, salinity, and temperature profiles – would have been the tool to find these oasis’. I hope their paper describes the process (search theory) used to select sampling sites.
Carla (05:14:42) :
“Have you read this one yet?”
I have read shorter version:
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/earth20091222.html
r (05:33:13)
What if the tidal forces moved to new places on the globe as the earth wobbles on its axis over time?>>
the variations in the moon’s orbit compared to the equator are far larger than the wobbles in the earth’s axis.
r (16:34:15) : Look at this:
It seems that old astrologists were not so fool as comptemporary (and highly presumptuous “namers of stars” (flintstone’s unverse believers astro-nomers) as they favoured the geocentrism as more fitted when dealing with effects on our planet earth.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/27/tsunami-threat-for-hawaii/#comments
These indian geologists succesfully predicted the december 2004 earthquake and tsunami:
http://www.esc-web.org/papers/potsdam_2004/sce_venkatanathan.pdf
http://igu.in/9-4/5venkat.pdf
References:
Dr. N.Venkatanathan
Faculty of Physics,
School of Electrical and Electronics Engineering,
SASTRA University , Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu , India
physics16972@yahoo.com, physics16972@rediffmail.com & physics16972@gmail.com
venkatanathan@eee.sastra.edu
+91 – 9444807900. & +91- 44 – 26567088
davidmhoffer (20:13:54) : hmmmm…there is a LEVER you forgot: the lenght of the arc from the point where the planet/planets are projected on earth to the fault, plate/plates, etc.
JonesII
I read the paper from India on the surface it makes a certain amount of sense. The paper would have more credibility however if they had correlated ALL earthquake activity and shown a drop during those times when the planets were NOT aligned.
That said, I am not convinced. You need a force greater on one side of the fault than on the other to trigger an event. That’s built up by the movement of the plates themselves which is constant. As the pressure on a fault line builds to the “breaking point”, the leverage planetary gravity could apply would be tiny in comparison to the moon, the shifting of the plates themselves, the motion of the earths crust against molten outer core, the rate of convection zones in the molten outer core, etc.
Lost City Pumps Life-Essential Chemicals At Rates Unseen At Typical Deep Ocean Hydrothermal Vents
ScienceDaily (Feb. 5, 2008) — “Hydrocarbons — molecules critical to life — are being generated by the simple interaction of seawater with the rocks under the Lost City hydrothermal vent field in the mid-Atlantic Ocean.”
“Researchers have ruled out carbon from the biosphere as a component of the hydrocarbons in Lost City vent fluids.”
(See the below link for the article:)
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080131151856.htm
These hydrothermal vents and the expulsion of hydrocarbons are just one piece of evidence among many of an overwhelming body of scientific evidence that oil is abiotic.
Here is an abstract of a scientific paper that concisely spells out abiotic oil formation processes (link below):
http://www.searchanddiscovery.com/documents/2006/06088houston_abs/abstracts/keith.htm
(MagmaChem, L.L.C, Sonoita, AZ, is supported by an industry consortium of oil companies and mining companies.)
Peridotites, Serpentinization, and Hydrocarbons
Stanley B. Keith and Monte M. Swan
MagmaChem, L.L.C, Sonoita, AZ
“Serpentinization of peridotites by oceanic or metamorphic sourced brines under strongly reduced conditions and temperatures of 200-500 C produces hydrocarbon-rich, chloride and/or bicarbonate metal-bearing brines. Serpentinization is common on the ocean floor along fracture zones (Lost City), beneath conventional petroleum in rifts due to sedimentary burial (Gulf of Mexico) or thrust loading (Roan Trough), and at the top of flat subducting oceanic crust (Eocene beneath UT, CO, WY). Peridotites exhibit high-gravity, low-magnetic signatures. Serpentinized peridotites exhibit high-magnetic, low-gravity signatures. Volume expansion during serpentinization of up to 8X causes diapiric doming and induces expulsion of hydrocarbon-stable brines. There are 2 major types of peridotites: 1) magnesian dunitic peridotite with low V/Ni, high Au-Mg-Cu-Cr-Na/K, up to1400 ppm C (lithosphere source 51-130 km), 2) quartz alkalic aluminum-spinel peridotite with high V/Ni, high S-Mo-Ti-Al-Mn-Fe-U-K/Na up to 800 ppm C (athenosphere source 360-420 km). If hydrogen-stable (mainly thermogenic methane) peridotite-sourced brines rise into shelf carbonate sequence, they may form magnesian or quartz alkalic hydrothermal dolomite (HTD) and thermogenic gas. If the brines breech the hydrosphere they may produce “white smokers” (tuffa vent mounds/pinnacle reefs) along faults and enrich shales with exhalative metal and hydrocarbon. Petroleum condensate typically forms in reservoirs between the HTD zone and seep sites at the top of the lithosphere. Type I kerogen in black shale vents from Mg peridotite-sourced brines whereas Type II kerogen in black shale vents from quartz alkalic peridotite-sourced brines. Correspondingly hydrocarbon chemistry divides oil and gas into 2 major types: 1) magnesian sweet, low-sulfur paraffinic-naphtheric, 2) quartz alkalic sour, high-sulfur aromatic asphaltic. Geochemical markers that tie oil and gas to specific peridotite hydrothermal sources include nano-particle native metals and diamonds, and V-Ni porphyrins.”
To note: Rare earth minerals (those that are rare in the shallow crust but more plentiful in the deep crust and upper mantel are found in oil deposits, but not in the surrounding shallow crust in which the oil deposit is lodged.
Here is the conclusion from the abstract of a scientific paper (see link below):
Inorganic Geochemistry of Oil: First Results of the Study Using the ICP-MS Method of the East-European and West-Siberian Oil Deposits
Authors: Kirill S. Ivanov, Yuriy N. Fyodorov, Yuriy L. Ronkin, Yuriy V. Yerokhin, Olga E. Pogromskaya, and Irina N. Plotnikova
Institute of Geology and Geochemistry of Russian Academy of Sciences, Ekaterinburg, Russia
http://www.searchanddiscovery.net/abstracts/html/2007/athens_conf/abstracts/ivanov.htm
“The elemental distribution in the crude oil from all studied deposits does not match such of any known crustal rock. The experimental data presented should be taken into consideration during origin of oils is being discussed.”
Here is a written summary of a invited presentation given to the Houston Geolgical Society (principally and oil & gas concerned professional organization) at their meeting (opening paragraph):
Cracks of the World: Global Strike-Slip Fault Systems and Giant Resource Accumulations (link below:)
http://www.hgs.org/en/art/?34
“Evidence is mounting that the Earth is encircled by subtle necklaces of interconnecting, generally latitude-parallel faults. Many major mineral and energy resource accumulations are located within or near the deeply penetrating fractures of these “cracks of the world.” Future exploration for large petroleum occurrences should emphasize the definition, regional distribution, and specific characteristics of the global crack system. Specific drill targets can be predicted by understanding the local structural setting and fluid flow pathways in lateral, as well as vertical conduits, detectable through patterns in the local geochemistry and geophysics.”
The Houston Geological Society would not invite a presentation if there wasn’t serious consideration of the concepts presented (note the presenter is Stanley B. Keith, the author of the first “serpentinzination” link presented and head of MagmaChem, the oil industry supported research outfit).
And, here is a paper reporting the location of giant oil fields around the world and the author points out most giant oil fields sit above tectonic plate boundaries, which in the ocean like that reported in the instant post are the mid-ocean spreading ridges with hydrothermal vents.
Tectonic Setting of the World’s Giant Oil and Gas Fields(link below)
http://www.hgs.org/en/articles/printview.asp?236
“The world’s 877 giant oil and gas fields are those with 500 million bbl of ultimately recoverable oil or gas equivalent. Remarkably, almost all of these 877 giant fields, which by some estimates account for 67% of the world’s petroleum reserves, cluster in 27 regions, or about 30%, of the earth’s land surface (Figure 1). In this talk, I present maps showing the location of all 877 giants located on tectonic and sedimentary basin maps of these 27 key regions. I classify the tectonic setting of the giants in these regions using six simplified classes of the tectonic setting for basins in these regions: (1) continental passive margins fronting major ocean basins (304 giants); (2) continental rifts and overlying sag or ‘‘steer’s head’’ basins (271 giants); (3) collisional margins produced by terminal collision between two continents (173 giants); (4) collisional margins produced by continental collision related to terrane accretion, arc collision, and/or shallow subduction (71 giants); (5) strike-slip margins (50 giants); and (6) subduction margins not affected by major arc or continental collisions (8 giants).”
As I stated at the top the scientific evidence for Abiotic Oil is overwhelming, this review is just a small sample of the available scientfic evidence.
davidmhoffer (08:38:24) :You are right, that’s where our friend Vuk could come in our help with the GMF, which BTW it’s created again by an electric current…and it could be related, by our friend Anthony, to the 2005 Ap index drop…just after the sumatra earthquake and tsunami. Maybe some people would say “correlations”, but by forbbiding ourselves to shut our ears and to close our eyes, like in the known cartoon doesn’t help….unless you wanna “hide the decline”☺
“Give me a lever and I will move the world”….Archimides
I have always suspected that sub-oceanic volcanic activity and hydrothermal vents must have a sizeable effect on sea temperature and, ultimately, atmospheric temperature. I would imagine that only small %age changes in the activity levels of such powerful, natural phenomena would be necessary to cause relatively large changes to SST and LTT. Have any attempts ever been made to evaluate the possible level of impact on the Earth’s “climate”?
Ian H (16:21:26)
Yes hot water melts ice. But there isn’t much ice three miles down (Ice floats, right? RIGHT!?!?!). And by the time you get to the surface you would hardly be able to detect the amount of heating, let alone melt ice with it.
BBk (05:39:51) :
As indetectable as 1 degree in a hundred years? 🙂
You might find this paper interesting
http://www.ocean-sci.net/5/203/2009/os-5-203-2009.pdf
Geothermal heating, diapycnal mixing and the abyssal circulation
If, as I do, you lack specific knowledge of the techno jargon in the field you may find it a bit of heavy sledding. Having personally invested some time in trying to penetrate that fog, I am struck by the authors willingness to admit to the large uncertainties in the accepted knowledge in their field and their suggestion that the contribution of geothermal heating to the oceanic heat balance may be vastly underestimated.
from the abstract
. For strong vertical mix- ing rates, geothermal heating enhances the AABW cell by
about 15% (2.5 Sv) and heats up the last 2000 m by ∼0.15◦C,
reaching a maximum of by 0.3◦C in the deep North Pacific.
Prescribing a realistic spatial distribution of the heat flux acts to enhance this temperature rise at mid-depth and reduce it at great depth, producing a more modest increase in overturning than in the uniform case. In all cases, however, poleward heat
transport increases by ∼10% in the Southern Ocean. The
three approaches converge to the conclusion that geothermal heating is an important actor of abyssal dynamics, and should no longer be neglected in oceanographic studies.
some selected quotes
– A remarkable finding is that the increase in ocean heat transport was nearly constant across experiments, despite the broad range of thermal and circulation changes they encompass. The presence of a geothermal heat- flow, whether spatially variable or not, means that the ocean must evacuate an additional 0.03 PW, which it does in all cases by enhancing poleward heat transport in the Southern Hemisphere, by about 10% near 50◦ S.
The case is hereby made that geothermal heating is an important actor of abyssal dynamics. We recommend its inclusion in every model dealing with the long-term ocean circulation, for it substantially alters bottom water mass characteristics and generates a non-negligible circulation in the present-day climate.
I admit I’m still struggling to fully understand the implications of this work, but one thing that does seem quite clear is that, when the climate community declares that GW must be caused by anthropogenic CO2, because what else could it possibly be, this is another of a growing pantheon of possibilities that they don’t understand well enough to dismiss.
I would also note that when I looked at the papers that form the basis for the generally accepted figure of 88mW/m2 for the geothermal contribution to the ocean heat balance that number seems to be derived from a calculation based on the generalized rate of crustal cooling and the contribution of active volcanism and vents is considered negligible. As commenters above have mentioned the accepted extent and number of active sites on the ocean floor has also been seriously underestimated and if those effects are added into the calculations in this work, the authors conclusions would only be magnified.
I may be entirely wrong in the implications I’ve drawn from this, but I have raised it several times in the past and no one has jumped in to call me an idiot yet. If I am wrong the paper demonstrates that my lack of understanding would hardly be unique in this area.
JonesII (10:03:29) :
“Give me a lever and I will move the world”….Archimides
Give me a lever long enough, and a place to stand, and I will move the world.
Its that place to stand that is really really hard to find.
How does the recent and continued wide spread high level of earthquake activity in the Pacific area compare with past data?
edcon (10:20:50) : How about the moon?
edcon (10:20:50) :…and any equilibrated system, like a sevreal tons rock resting on a acute angle, can be move by the finger of a child…why not by the long finger of a planet?
JonesII (10:03:29) wrote: “Give me a lever and I will move the world”….Archimides
Excellent point.
The Archimides Screw is one of the most important insights of ancient antiquity.
It’s principles are presently employed by Man on a daily basis…and reflected in natural phenomenon…if you know what I mean.
Good call JonesII.
edcon (10:20:50) :……and that if only gravity is considered, but if ******* (forbidden word by the settled science community and now asking for publicity-see next post-) is added to the mix then you have take it to the 39th power (btw, gravity squared by the 39th.power it’s almost zero)