Hydrothermal clay mineral formation of East Pacific rise and Bauer Basin sediments
- Creators
- McMurtry, Gary M.
- Yeh, Hsueh-Wen
Abstract
Samples of surface metalliferous sediment recovered from the crest of the East Pacific Rise at 6°S and 10°S latitudes and from the adjacent Bauer Basin are characterized by an authigenically formed, Fe-rich montmorillonite that dominates the non-carbonate mineralogy of the clay fraction (< 2 μm). Oxygen-isotopic formation temperatures indicate that the Fe-montmorillonites are created by low-temperature, hydrothermal processes (30°–50°C) in the 10°S region of the East Pacific Rise and Bauer Basin, possibly as a result of cooling and oxidation of unstable, high-temperature (380° ± 30°C) sulfide assemblages or as a result of the percolation of hydrothermally altered seawater solutions through underlying basalt and sediments. The widespread sedimentation of the clay mineral is suggested to be caused by colloidal transport, possibly as a result of erosion of hydrothermal mounds by bottom currents. Hydrothermal Fe-montmorillonite-nontronite formation may act as a direct and significant oceanic sink for Si and Fe released by the high-temperature, hydrothermal alteration of basalt at ocean spreading centers.
Additional Information
© 1981 Elsevier B.V. Received 2 September 1980, Accepted 20 February 1981. We thank Virginia Greenberg for the atomic absorption analyses and Rollin C. Jones for his help with the XRF quantometer. The SEM results were completed with the assistance of William Showers. We also acknowledge the skillful assistance of Alexis Walser and Michiko Hitchcox in the preparation of the manuscript and the helpful comments of A.J. Andrews and J.J. Griffin during Gary McMurtry's at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. This study was supported in part by the National Science Foundation, Office of International Decade of Ocean Exploration (GMM) and by NSF grant OCE-78-25283 (HWY) and DES71-0558-A03 (Epstein}. Hsueh-Wen Yeh acknowledges Dr. Sam Epstein's support during the author's stay at California Institute of Technology.Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 81401
- DOI
- 10.1016/0009-2541(81)90143-1
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20170913-085516097
- OCE-78-25283
- NSF
- DES71-0558-A03
- NSF
- Created
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2017-09-14Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-15Created from EPrint's last_modified field