(Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, 2005-02)
Wichers, Sacha
Hydrothermal vents discharge superheated, mineral rich water into our oceans, thereby
providing a habitat for exotic chemosynthetic biological communities. Hydrothermal
fluids are convected upwards until they cool and reach density equilibrium, at which
point they advect laterally with the current. The neutrally buoyant plume layer can have
length scales on the order of several kilometers, and it therefore provides the best means
to detect the presence of vent fields on the seafloor, which typically have length scales on
the order of a few meters. This thesis uses field measurements of the velocity, temperature
and particulate anomalies associated with the TAG hydrothermal plume to demonstrate
that tidal currents exert a strong impact on the plume shape, and to provide new
constraints on the thermal power of the TAG hydrothermal system. The results show that
the power output of the TAG system is on the order of 6000 MW, which is up to two
orders of magnitude greater than previous estimates, and that there is considerably more
entrainment than had previously been assumed.
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