A seafloor experiment to monitor vertical deformation at the Lucky Strike volcano, Mid-Atlantic Ridge

Abstract

Decades of cruise-based exploration have provided excellent snapshots of the structure of mid-ocean ridges and have revealed that accretion is a mixture of steady-state and quantum events. Observatory-type studies are now needed to quantify the temporal evolution of these systems. A multi-disciplinary seafloor observatory site is currently being set up at the Lucky Strike volcano, in the axial valley of the slow spreading Mid-Atlantic ridge as a part of the MoMAR (monitoring of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge) initiative. The aim of this observatory is to better understand the dynamics of the volcano and the hydrothermal vents hosted at its summit as well as their plumbing systems. In August 2006, the GRAVILUCK cruise initiated an experiment to monitor the deformation of Lucky Strike volcano. A geodetic network was installed, and seafloor pressure, gravity and magnetic data were collected. In this paper, we present the method used to monitor volcanic deformation, which involves measuring relative depth difference between points within a seafloor geodesy network. We show that, taking into account oceanographic variability and measurement noise, the network should be able to detect vertical deformations of the order of 1 cm.