Abstract
Hydrothermal activity is integral to creation and cooling of ocean lithosphere on the crest and flanks of the global mid-ocean ridge system. Plates of lithosphere spread apart at mid-ocean ridges, generating cracking and magmatism that provide fluid flow pathways and heat sources to drive large-scale hydrothermal convection of seawater through ocean crustal rocks. Mid-ocean ridge hydrothermal circulation facilitates massive thermal, chemical, and biological exchange between the oceans and the lithosphere, and creates many hot springs that support life and precipitate mineral deposits on and under the seabed. Spreading rates influence the properties and processes of mid-ocean ridges, and affect the geologic settings, abundance, distribution, sizes, and compositions of mid-ocean ridge hydrothermal deposits. These mineral deposits are valuable for their metals; for their role in fostering hydrothermal vent ecosystems; as geologic and geochemical indicators of temporal changes and spatial variability in mid-ocean ridge hydrothermal systems; and as geological records of how life at hydrothermal vents has evolved through geologic time.
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