Showing papers by "David Kadko published in 2013"

The Magnitude and Global Implications of Hydrothermal Flux

Abstract: Hydrothermal circulation of seawater through the oceanic crust plays a role in many geologic and oceanographic processes, including 1) heat loss from the earth, 2) aging of the oceanic crust, 3) geochemical cycling of the elements, 4) biogeochemistry of deep ocean waters, and possibly 5) general ocean circulation. The importance of the hydrothermal component to these processes depends on the timescale of the hydrothermal interaction relative to competing oceanic processes, and to the spatial scales that are involved. Certainly, if other processes operate on much faster timeseales, then the hydrothermal contribution will not be globally significant, but might have importance on a local or regional scale. The purpose of this paper is to assess the status of our understanding of the hydrothermal flux in the world ocean, to explore the time and space males that are relevant to this flux, and to discuss how the effect of this flux in past oceans might have been different from that which we observe today.