Oceanic Trench - Water and Biosphere

Water and Biosphere

The volume of water escaping from within and beneath the forearc results in some of Earth’s most dynamic and complex interactions between aqueous fluids and rocks. Most of this water is trapped in pores and fractures in the upper lithosphere and sediments of the subducting plate. The average forearc is underrun by a solid volume of oceanic sediment that is 400 m (1,300 ft) thick. This sediment enters the trench with 50-60% porosity. These sediments are progressively squeezed as they are subducted, reducing void space and forcing fluids out along the decollement and up into the overlying forearc, which may or may not have an accretionary prism. Sediments accreted to the forearc are another source of fluids. Water is also bound in hydrous minerals, especially clays and opal. Increasing pressure and temperature experienced by subducted materials converts the hydrous minerals to denser phases that contain progressively less structurally bound water. Water released by dehydration accompanying phase transitions is another source of fluids introduced to the base of the overriding plate. These fluids may travel through the accretionary prism diffusely, via interconnected pore spaces in sediments, or may follow discrete channels along faults. Sites of venting may take the form of mud volcanoes or seeps and are often associated with chemosynthetic communities. Fluids escaping from the shallowest parts of a subduction zone may also escape along the plate boundary but have rarely been observed draining along the trench axis. All of these fluids are dominated by water but also contain dissolved ions and organic molecules, especially methane. Methane is often sequestered in an ice-like form (methane clathrate, also called gas hydrate) in the forearc. These are a potential energy source and can rapidly break down. Destabilization of gas hydrates has contributed to global warming in the past and will likely do so in the future.

Chemosynthetic communities thrive where cold fluids seep out of the forearc. Cold seep communities have been discovered in inner trench slopes down to depths of 7000 m in the western Pacific, especially around Japan, in the Eastern Pacific along North, Central and South America coasts from the Aleutian to the Peru-Chile trenches, on the Barbados prism, in the Mediterranean, and in the Indian Ocean along the Makran and Sunda convergent margins. These communities receive much less attention than the chemosynthetic communities associated with hydrothermal vents. Chemosynthetic communities are located in a variety of geological settings: above over-pressured sediments in accretionary prisms where fluids are expelled through mud volcanoes or ridges (Barbados, Nankai and Cascadia); along active erosive margins with faults; and along escarpments caused by debris slides (Japan trench, Peruvian margin). Surface seeps may be linked to massive hydrate deposits and destabilization (e.g. Cascadia margin). High concentrations of methane and sulfide in the fluids escaping from the seafloor are the principal energy sources for chemosynthesis.