Thomas, Maria and our students Kristin, Mike, Timo and Christoph are participating on RV Sonne cruise 207. More information on the scientific background are discribed below.
The circulation of seawater through young oceanic crust, generated on mid-ocean ridges, is a common and accepted hypothesis in marine geosciences. Due to this circulation of seawater a lot of heat of the young oceanic lithosphere is removed and cause large-scale lithosphere cooling.
That circulation of seawater could also occur between oceanic basement outcrops, also known as seamounts, and is a relative new assumption in science. To explore these poorly understood mechanisms of hydrothermal ventilation between seamounts, two sections of the Department of Geosciences, University of Bremen, are going in for an expedition on RV Sonne on the Cocos plate near Costa Rica.
The Cocos plate owns a lot well described seamounts, where the existence of small circular depressions above these seamounts is proved. These called “hydrothermal pits” are the main object of interest for both sections. While the section Meerestechnik and Sensorik, directed by Prof. H. Villinger, perform primarily heat flow measurements and marine reflection seismics, the section Geochemistry and Hydrogeology is interested in the geochemical processes appearing in the sediment column above these mentioned seamounts. Therefore the team operates gravity and multi coring to perform pore-water and sediment sampling on board.
The circulation of seawater through young oceanic crust, generated on mid-ocean ridges, is a common and accepted hypothesis in marine geosciences. Due to this circulation of seawater a lot of heat of the young oceanic lithosphere is removed and cause large-scale lithosphere cooling.
That circulation of seawater could also occur between oceanic basement outcrops, also known as seamounts, and is a relative new assumption in science. To explore these poorly understood mechanisms of hydrothermal ventilation between seamounts, two sections of the Department of Geosciences, University of Bremen, are going in for an expedition on RV Sonne on the Cocos plate near Costa Rica.
The Cocos plate owns a lot well described seamounts, where the existence of small circular depressions above these seamounts is proved. These called “hydrothermal pits” are the main object of interest for both sections. While the section Meerestechnik and Sensorik, directed by Prof. H. Villinger, perform primarily heat flow measurements and marine reflection seismics, the section Geochemistry and Hydrogeology is interested in the geochemical processes appearing in the sediment column above these mentioned seamounts. Therefore the team operates gravity and multi coring to perform pore-water and sediment sampling on board.
The shore-based analyses and data evaluation of our group is cooridnated by Wisanukorn Poonchai.
Sonne So207 Guatemala basin