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Hydrothermal signature in ferromanganese oxide coatings on pumice from the Central Indian Ocean Basin

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Abstract

Mineralogical and elemental analyses of 20 ferromanganese (FeMn)-coated pumice samples from the Central Indian Ocean Basin (CIOB) indicate that todorokite is the major mineral phase, whereas vernadite occurs only rarely. Based on major, trace and rare earth elements (REEs) as well as Ce anomalies, the sources of the FeMn oxides were identified to be either hydrogenous, hydrothermal-plume fallout, diagenetic or a combination of these. Plots of Fe/Mn vs. Ce or Co reveal a distinct demarcation of the diagenetic, hydrogenous and plume fallout samples. Five samples are interpreted to be of hydrothermal origin because these show negative Ce anomalies and low Co/Zn ratios (0.5 to 1.1), and are masked by diagenesis. The relative contributions of hydrogenous, hydrothermal and diagenetic inputs were assessed in terms of ternary mixing patterns using REE mass balance equations. Furthermore, the hypothetical Ce anomaly (Ce/Ce*) was calculated using ternary mixing calculations for hydrogenous, hydrothermal and diagenetic end-members to ascertain the input to FeMn oxides on the pumice samples. This revealed a distinction between hydrogenous and hydrothermal components but diagenetic and plume fallout components could not be distinguished because this scheme comprises a three end-member calculation. A conservative estimate indicates the hydrothermal component to vary between 24% and 72%. The growth rates of the oxides, as estimated from published empirical methods, range between 3 and 47 mm/106 years. Fe/Mn ratios yielded a maximum age of 5–7 Ma and a minimum of 0.04–0.1 Ma. This suggests that the commencement of accretion of the FeMn oxides generally precedes the age of the Krakatau 1883 eruption, which is commonly considered as being the prime source of pumice to the CIOB. This is the first evidence of hydrothermal influence in the formation of FeMn oxides on CIOB pumice.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the Directors for permission to publish this paper. We acknowledge the help received from V.K. Banakar and G. Parthiban (ICP-OES), V. Khedekar (SEM-EDS), G. Prabhu (XRD), B. Vijay Kumar (access to sample repository), S. Jai Sankar (sample locations), and T.G. Rao and M. Satyanarayanan (ICP-MS; National Geophysical Research Institute, Hyderabad). We are obliged to two anonymous reviewers for thoughtful comments that helped to substantially improve the article, and to the editors for their useful feedback. This work is a part of N.K.’s Ph.D. thesis, with financial assistance via the CSIR (New Delhi) Fellowship scheme. This is NIO’s contribution No. 5717.

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  1. Niyati G. Kalangutkar

    Present address: National Centre for Antarctic and Ocean Research (MoES), Headland Sada, Vasco-da-Gama, Goa, 403804, India

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  1. Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, National Institute of Oceanography, Dona Paula, Goa, 403004, India

    Niyati G. Kalangutkar, Sridhar D. Iyer, Maria B. L. Mascarenhas-Pereira & B. Nagender Nath

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  1. Niyati G. Kalangutkar
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Kalangutkar, N.G., Iyer, S.D., Mascarenhas-Pereira, M.B.L. et al. Hydrothermal signature in ferromanganese oxide coatings on pumice from the Central Indian Ocean Basin. Geo-Mar Lett 35, 221–235 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00367-015-0402-x

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