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The stress state and rock mechanical properties govern the growth of faults and fractures, which constitute shallow hydrothermal pathways and control the distribution of seafloor massive sulfide (SMS) mounds in the seafloor hydrothermal field. The stress field has an important influence on the formation and persistence of hydrothermal pathways. Based on multibeam bathymetric data from the Trans-Atlantic Geotraverse (TAG) field, we establish two three-dimensional geological models with different scales to simulate the stress field, which investigate the characteristics of hydrothermal pathways and associated SMS mounds. The simulation results show that oblique faults and fissures form in the tensile stress zone and that mounds, including active and inactive hydrothermal mounds form in the compressive stress zone. Fault activity, which is related to the stress field, affects the opening and closing of hydrothermal channels and changes the permeability structure of subseafloor wall rock. Therefore, the stress field controls the development and persistence of shallow hydrothermal pathways. The features of shallow hydrothermal pathways in the stress field can provide geomechanical information that is useful for identifying favorable zone for SMS deposit formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coupled magmatic and tectonic activity plays an important role in high-temperature hydrothermal circulation at mid-ocean ridges. The circulation patterns for such systems have been elucidated by microearthquakes and geochemical data over a broad spectrum of spreading rates, but such data have not been generally available for ultra-slow spreading ridges. Here we report new geophysical and fluid geochemical data for high-temperature active hydrothermal venting at Dragon Horn area (49.7°E) on the Southwest Indian Ridge. Twin detachment faults penetrating to the depth of 13 ± 2 km below the seafloor were identified based on the microearthquakes. The geochemical composition of the hydrothermal fluids suggests a long reaction path involving both mafic and ultramafic lithologies. Combined with numerical simulations, our results demonstrate that these hydrothermal fluids could circulate ~ 6 km deeper than the Moho boundary and to much greater depths than those at Trans-Atlantic Geotraverse and Logachev-1 hydrothermal fields on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Magmatic and tectonic activity at mid-oceanic ridges can give detailed insights into high-temperature hydrothermal circulation of fluids. The authors here present geochemical and geophysical datasets that suggest a hydrothermal system penetrating the upper lithospheric mantle at an ultra-slow spreading mid-oceanic ridge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Seismic monitoring using ocean bottom seismometers (OBS) is an efficient method for investigating earthquakes in mid-ocean ridge far away from land. Clock synchronization among the OBSs is difficult without direct communication because electromagnetic signals cannot propagate efficiently in water. Time correction can be estimated through global positioning system (GPS) synchronization if clock drift is linear before and after the deployment. However, some OBSs in the experiments at the southwest Indian ridge (SWIR) on the Chinese DY125-34 cruise had not been re-synchronized from GPS after recovery. So we attempted to estimate clock drift between each station pairs using time symmetry analysis (TSA) based on ambient noise cross-correlation. We tested the feasibility of the TSA method by analyzing daily noise cross-correlation functions (NCFs) that extract from the data of another OBS experiment on the Chinese DY125-40 cruise with known clock drift and the same deployment site. The results suggest that the NCFs’ travel time of surface wave between any two stations are symmetrical and have an opposite growing direction with the date. The influence of different band-pass filters, different components and different normalized methods was discussed. The TSA method appeared to be optimal for the hydrophone data within the period band of 2-5 s in dozens of km-scale interstation distances. A significant clock drift of ~2 s was estimated between OBSs sets through linear regression during a 108-d deployment on the Chinese cruise DY125-34. Time correction of the OBS by the ambient noise cross-correlation was demonstrated as a practical approach with the appropriate parameters in case of no GPS re-synchronization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]