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Carbon release by off-axis magmatism in a young sedimented spreading centre

Nature Geoscience volume 4, pages 50–54 (2011)Cite this article

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Abstract

Continental rifting creates narrow ocean basins, where coastal ocean upwelling results in high biological productivity and organic-rich sedimentation. In addition, topographic gradients promote silicate weathering, which consumes atmospheric CO2 (ref. 1). The carbon flux associated with these processes has led to the suggestion that rifting may cool the atmosphere, leading in some cases to glaciation2 and even a snowball Earth scenario3. Guaymas basin, within the Gulf of California, is a young spreading system where new igneous crust is formed beneath a layer of organic-rich sediment that is 1–2 kmthick. Here we present seismic data from Guaymas basin that image recent, basin-wide magmatic intrusions into sediments; sonar backscatter and seafloor photographs that indicate numerous, broadly distributed chemosynthetic seafloor biological communities, and geochemical analyses of water samples suggesting that the methane that supports these communities is derived from magma-driven thermogenic alteration of sediments. Our results suggest that active shallow magmatism releases carbon from sediments up to 50 km away from the plate boundary. This is a much larger area than the less than 5 km found at unsedimented mid-ocean ridges4, and than previously recognized. We conclude that thick sediments may promote broad magmatism, reducing the efficiency of natural carbon sequestration within young sedimented rifts.

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Figure 1: Bathymetry of Guaymas basin within the Gulf of California.
Figure 2: Seismic observations of igneous sills across the northern Guaymas spreading segment.
Figure 3: Side-scan sonar and photographic imagery from the northern Guaymas segment.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the co-PIs of the PESCADOR experiment, the captains and crew of the R/V Maurice Ewing, R/V New Horizon and R/V Altantis, M. Edwards and the staff of the Hawaii Mapping Research Group for sidescan sonar, D. Fornari, M. Schwartz and A. Fundis for seafloor photography, J. Urban for logistical assistance and A. Gorman for his efforts aboard the R/V New Horizon. This work was financially supported by grants from the US NSF-MARGINS and NSF-IODP programmes.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geology and Geophysics, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, Massachusetts 02543, USA

    Daniel Lizarralde & S. Adam Soule

  2. Department of Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, Massachusetts 02543, USA

    Jeff S. Seewald & Giora Proskurowski

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  1. Daniel Lizarralde
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  2. S. Adam Soule
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  4. Giora Proskurowski
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Contributions

D.L. analysed the seismic data, S.A.S. designed and led the seafloor mapping program, J.S.S. designed the fluid chemistry programme and G.P. collected and analysed the fluid samples. D.L. wrote the paper with substantial input from the other authors.

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Correspondence to Daniel Lizarralde.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Lizarralde, D., Soule, S., Seewald, J. et al. Carbon release by off-axis magmatism in a young sedimented spreading centre. Nature Geosci 4, 50–54 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo1006

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