Cruise Report: CD149 – RRS Charles Darwin 18th July to 6th August, 2003. Spreading-ridge geometry, hydrothermal activity, and the influence of modern and ancient hotspots on the Carlsberg Ridge - northwestern Indian Ocean

Murton, B.J. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1522-1191; Taylor, R.N.. 2003 Cruise Report: CD149 – RRS Charles Darwin 18th July to 6th August, 2003. Spreading-ridge geometry, hydrothermal activity, and the influence of modern and ancient hotspots on the Carlsberg Ridge - northwestern Indian Ocean. Southampton, UK, Southampton Oceanography Centre, 37pp.

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Abstract/Summary

Cruise CD149 on board the RRS Charles Darwin aimed to explore the Carlsberg Ridge, Northern Indian Ocean. The cruise recovered multibeam swath bathymetry (EM12), dredge samples from 20 stations, water column profiles from 16 stations and water samples from one station, between 57 and 61.5°E. The initial results were: a discovery of a hydrothermal super plume – a plume signal rising 1200m above the seafloor and extending 30km along the ridge crest (named by the ship’s company as the iGass Plume); recovery of an extinct hydrothermal site with oxidised sulphide chimney fragments; imagery of a megamullion site with recovery of dolerite, flazer gabbro and moderately fresh peridotite from a core complex of lower crust and upper mantle; and fresh basaltic glass samples from 95% of the sites sampled. Until this cruise, the western Carlsberg Ridge was almost unknown, with only two or three poorly located rock samples, no continuous bathymetry, only a few single-track geophysics lines and no exploration for hydrothermal activity. However, the ridge is important since it probably includes the unradiogenic end-member of the Indian Ocean mantle source (at its eastern end), is likely to have a distal influence from the Afar hotspot (at its western end), and has a history of recent changes in spreading geometry reflected in an unusual segmentation pattern. It also represents a distal portion of the midocean ridge system that is connected through its eastern end only, thus having significant implications for the dispersal and colonisation of hydrothermal ecosystems.

Item Type:	Publication - Report
Additional Information. Not used in RCUK Gateway to Research.:	This report was not published in the Southampton Oceanography Centre Cruise Report series
Additional Keywords:	Carlsberg Ridge, Charles Darwin, cruise 149 2003, Indian Ocean
Date made live:	16 Mar 2004 +0 (UTC)
URI:	https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/100406

Item Type:

Publication - Report

Additional Information. Not used in RCUK Gateway to Research.:

This report was not published in the Southampton Oceanography Centre Cruise Report series

Additional Keywords:

Carlsberg Ridge, Charles Darwin, cruise 149 2003, Indian Ocean

Date made live:

16 Mar 2004 +0 (UTC)

URI:

https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/100406