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.

Measurement of attogram quantities of 231Pa in dissolved and particulate fractions of seawater by isotope dilution thermal ionization mass spectroscopy.

A technique has been developed to quantify ultratrace 231Pa (50-2000 ag; 1 ag = 10(-18) g) concentrations in seawater using isotope-dilution thermal ionization mass spectrometry (TIMS). The method is a modification of a process developed by Pickett et al. (Pickett, D. A.; Murrell, M. T.; Williams, R. W. Anal. Chem. 1994, 66, 1044-1049) and extends the technique to very low levels of protactinium. The procedural blank is 16 +/- 15 ag (2sigma), and the ionization efficiency (ions generated/atom loaded) approaches 0.5%. Measurement time is <1 h. The amount of 231Pa needed to produce 231Pa data with an uncertainty of +/-4-12% is 100-1000 ag (approximately 3 x 10(5) to 3 x 10(6) atoms). Replicate measurements made on known standards and seawater samples demonstrate that the analytical precision approximates that expected from counting statistics and that, based on detection limits of 38 and 49 ag, protactinium can be detected in a minimum sample size of surface seawater of approximately 2 L for suspended particulate matter and <0.1 L for filtered (<0.4 microm) seawater, respectively. The concentration of 231Pa (tens of attograms per liter) can be determined with an uncertainty of +/-5-10% (2sigma) for suspended particulate matter filtered from 5 to 10 L of seawater. For the dissolved fraction, 0.5-1 L of seawater yields 231Pa measurements with a precision of 1-10%. Sample size requirements are orders of magnitude less than traditional decay-counting techniques and significantly less than previously reported ICP-MS techniques. Our technique can also be applied to other environmental samples, including cave waters, rivers, and igneous rocks.