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Geology

Article: pp. 543–546 | PDF (337K)

New stratification in the hydrothermal brine system of the Atlantis II Deep, Red Sea

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Gérard Blanc, Pierre Anschutz

Centre de Géochimie de la Surface, Unité propre de recherche no. 6251, Université Louis Pasteur, 1 rue Blessig, 67084 Strasbourg Cedex, France

Temperature and salinity records from the REDSED cruise (September 1992) reveal a new stratification in the hydrothermal brine system of the Atlantis II Deep. This stratification consists of the preexisting lower and upper convective layers (LCL and UCL1), with temperatures of about 66 ° C and 55 ° C, respectively, and two additional upper convective layers (UCL2 and UCL3) that formed more recently and have distinct temperature, salinity, and thickness. In accordance with the physical process that leads to the formation of brine layers (i.e., double-diffusive convection), a flow rate of about 200 L/s has been estimated for the hydrothermal discharge.

DOI: 10.1130/0091-7613(1995)023<0543:NSITHB>2.3.CO;2

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