Gas Migration Episodes Observed During Peridotite Alteration in the Samail Ophiolite, Oman.

Serpentinization and carbonation of mantle rocks (peridotite alteration) are fundamentally important processes for a spectrum of geoscience topics, including arc volcanism, earthquake processes, chemosynthetic biological communities, and carbon sequestration. Data from a hydrophone array deployed in the Multi-Borehole Observatory (MBO) of the Oman Drilling Project demonstrates that free gas generated by peridotite alteration and/or microbial activity migrates through the formation in discrete bursts of activity. We detected several, minutes-long, swarms of gas discharge into Hole BA1B of the MBO over the course of a 9 month observation interval. The episodic nature of the migration events indicates that free gas accumulates in the permeable flow network, is pressurized, and discharges rapidly into the borehole when a critical pressure, likely associated with a capillary barrier at a flow constriction, is reached. Our observations reveal a dynamic mode of fluid migration during serpentinization, and highlight the important role that free gas can play in modulating pore pressure, fluid flow, and alteration kinetics during peridotite weathering.

Explosive volcanism on the ultraslow-spreading Gakkel ridge, Arctic Ocean.

Roughly 60% of the Earth's outer surface is composed of oceanic crust formed by volcanic processes at mid-ocean ridges. Although only a small fraction of this vast volcanic terrain has been visually surveyed or sampled, the available evidence suggests that explosive eruptions are rare on mid-ocean ridges, particularly at depths below the critical point for seawater (3,000 m). A pyroclastic deposit has never been observed on the sea floor below 3,000 m, presumably because the volatile content of mid-ocean-ridge basalts is generally too low to produce the gas fractions required for fragmenting a magma at such high hydrostatic pressure. We employed new deep submergence technologies during an International Polar Year expedition to the Gakkel ridge in the Arctic Basin at 85 degrees E, to acquire photographic and video images of 'zero-age' volcanic terrain on this remote, ice-covered ridge. Here we present images revealing that the axial valley at 4,000 m water depth is blanketed with unconsolidated pyroclastic deposits, including bubble wall fragments (limu o Pele), covering a large (>10 km(2)) area. At least 13.5 wt% CO(2) is necessary to fragment magma at these depths, which is about tenfold the highest values previously measured in a mid-ocean-ridge basalt. These observations raise important questions about the accumulation and discharge of magmatic volatiles at ultraslow spreading rates on the Gakkel ridge and demonstrate that large-scale pyroclastic activity is possible along even the deepest portions of the global mid-ocean ridge volcanic system.