Ocean Flows Through the Seafloor: Hydrothermal Siphon Sucks up Water

It turns out that vast quantities of ocean water don't just circulate through the ocean itself; it also circulates through the seafloor. Researchers have found that water flows through the volcanic rock of the upper oceanic crust.

In the early 2000s, the researchers discovered the first ever field site where they could track water flowing through the oceanic crust. Located in the northeastern Pacific Ocean, this site was examined by the scientists. They found that bottom seawater entered into one seamount, traveled horizontally through the crust, gaining heat and reacting with crustal rocks, and then discharged into the ocean through another seamount more than 50 kilometers away.

About 25 percent of the heat that flows out of the earth's interior is transferred to the oceans through this process. Much of the fluid flow and heat transfer occurs through thousands of extinct underwater volcanoes and other locations where porous volcanic rock is exposed at the seafloor.

The researchers also created 3D computer models to reveal how the process works. These models showed that there's a "hydrothermal siphon" driven by heat loss from deep in the Earth.

"This modeling result was surprising initially, and we had to run many simulations to convince ourselves that it made sense," said Dustin Winslow, one of the researchers, in a news release. "We also found that models set up to flow in the opposite direction would spontaneously flip so that discharge occurred through less transmissive seamounts. This seems to be fundamental to explaining how these systems are sustained."

The findings are published in the journal Nature Communications.

Related Stories

Climate Change: Ocean Mixing May Reveal More Answers

For more great science stories and general news, please visit our sister site, Headlines and Global News (HNGN).