해저 열수분출구 탐사를 위한 지화학적 추적자의 활용

Abstract

Hydrothermal vents created by volcanic activity form diverse and unique biological communities supported by chemosynthesis. Some of chemical components of hydrothermal plumes show dramatic concentration gradients with positive-high to low or negative-low to high from the ambient seawater. Thus, these chemical components have been suggested as a geochemical tracer to explore hydrothermal vents. Therefore, a hydrothermal venting site has been explored using the gradient characteristic of chemical components and also this gradient characteristic is used to provide the information on the strength of hydrothermal activity. According to the gradient characteristics between plumes and ambient seawater, chemical components are generally divided into two groups, such as the anomaly-increase and the anomaly-decrease tracers. The first group of components is temperature, sulfide, ammonia, methane, manganese, iron, and helium which show the anomaly-increase (high to low gradients from plumes to ambient seawater) property. In contrast, the second group, such as oxygen, nitrate, and pH, show the anomaly-decrease (low to high gradients) property. Therefore, the potential usage of hydrosulfide, manganese, methane, and helium as a geochemical tracer to explore hydrothermal vents are evaluated with previous studies in this paper.