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Authigenic carbonates from active methane seeps offshore southwest Africa

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Abstract

The southwest African continental margin is well known for occurrences of active methane-rich fluid seeps associated with seafloor pockmarks at water depths ranging broadly from the shelf to the deep basins, as well as with high gas flares in the water column, gas hydrate accumulations, diagenetic carbonate crusts and highly diverse benthic faunal communities. During the M76/3a expedition of R/V METEOR in 2008, gravity cores recovered abundant authigenic carbonate concretions from three known pockmark sites—Hydrate Hole, Worm Hole, the Regab pockmark—and two sites newly discovered during that cruise, the so-called Deep Hole and Baboon Cluster. The carbonate concretions were commonly associated with seep-benthic macrofauna and occurred within sediments bearing shallow gas hydrates. This study presents selected results from a comprehensive analysis of the mineralogy and isotope geochemistry of diagenetic carbonates sampled at these five pockmark sites. The oxygen isotope stratigraphy obtained from three cores of 2–5 m length indicates a maximum age of about 60,000–80,000 years for these sediments. The authigenic carbonates comprise mostly magnesian calcite and aragonite, associated occasionally with dolomite. Their very low carbon isotopic compositions (–61.0 < δ13C ‰ V-PDB < –40.1) suggest anaerobic oxidation of methane (AOM) as the main process controlling carbonate precipitation. The oxygen isotopic signatures (+2.4 < δ18O ‰ V-PDB < +6.2) lie within the range in equilibrium under present-day/interglacial to glacial conditions of bottom seawater; alternatively, the most positive δ18O values might reflect the contribution of 18O-rich water from gas hydrate decomposition. The frequent occurrence of diagenetic gypsum crystals suggests that reduced sulphur (hydrogen sulphide, pyrite) from sub-seafloor sediments has been oxidized by oxygenated bottom water. The acidity released during this process can potentially induce the dissolution of carbonate, thereby providing enough Ca2+ ions for pore solutions to reach gypsum saturation; this is thought to be promoted by the bio-irrigation and burrowing activity of benthic fauna. The δ18O–δ13C patterns identified in the authigenic carbonates are interpreted to reflect variations in the rate of AOM during the last glacial–interglacial cycle, in turn controlled by variably strong methane fluxes through the pockmarks. These results complement the conclusions of Kasten et al. in this special issue, based on authigenic barite trends at the Hydrate Hole and Worm Hole pockmarks which were interpreted to reflect spatiotemporal variations in AOM related to subsurface gas hydrate formation–decomposition.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the captain, crew and scientific team of the M76/3a cruise on the RV METEOR. We thank A. Stadnitskaia and one anonymous reviewer for constructive comments which helped to improve the manuscript. We are also very grateful to the editors M.T. Delafontaine and B.W. Flemming for their very useful comments. Partial funding was provided by CNRS-INSU (CP, MMBV, JD) and through the DFG-Research Center/Excellence Cluster “The Ocean in the Earth System” (TP, TH, NF, VS).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Université Pierre et Marie Curie, LOCEAN (UMR 7159), 4 Place Jussieu, 75252, Paris Cedex 05, France

    Catherine Pierre & Jérôme Demange

  2. Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, CR2P (UMR 7207), 43 rue Buffon, 75005, Paris, France

    Marie-Madeleine Blanc-Valleron

  3. Université Pierre et Marie Curie, ISTEP, 4 Place Jussieu, 75252, Paris Cedex 05, France

    Omar Boudouma

  4. IFREMER, Géosciences Marines, 29280, Plouzané Cedex, France

    Jean-Paul Foucher

  5. MARUM – Center for Marine Environmental Sciences and Department of Geosciences, University of Bremen, Klagenfurter Strasse, 28359, Bremen, Germany

    Thomas Pape, Tobias Himmler, Noemi Fekete & Volkhard Spiess

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  1. Catherine Pierre
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  2. Marie-Madeleine Blanc-Valleron
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Correspondence to Catherine Pierre.

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Pierre, C., Blanc-Valleron, MM., Demange, J. et al. Authigenic carbonates from active methane seeps offshore southwest Africa. Geo-Mar Lett 32, 501–513 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00367-012-0295-x

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