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Dendritic networks of nanoscopic grooves measuring 50–75 nm wide by<50 nm deep occur on the walls of vesicles in the glassy margins of mid-ocean ridge pillow basalts worldwide. Until now, their exact origin and significance have remained unclear. Here we document examples of such grooved patterns on vesicle walls in rocks from beneath the North Atlantic Ocean, and give a fluid mechanical explanation for how they formed. According to this model, individual nanogrooves represent frozen viscous fingers of magmatic fluid that were injected into a thin spheroidal shell of hot glass surrounding each vesicle. The driving mechanism for this process is provided by previous numerical predictions of tangential tensile stress around some vesicles in glassy rocks upon cooling through the glass transition. The self-assembling nature of the dendritic nanogrooves, their small size, and overall complexity in form, are interesting from the standpoint of exploring new applications in the field of nanotechnology. Replicating such structures in the laboratory would compete with state-of-the-art nanolithography techniques, both in terms of pattern complexity and size, which would be useful in the fabrication of a variety of grooved nanodevices. Dendritic nanogrooving inSiO2glass might be employed in the manufacturing of integrated circuits.

Over the last two decades, conspicuously “biogenic-looking” corrosion microtextures have been found to occur globally within volcanic glass of thein situoceanic crust, ophiolites, and greenstone belts dating back to ~3.5 Ga. These so-called “tubular” and “granular” microtextures are widely interpreted to representbona fidemicrobial trace fossils; however, possible nonbiological origins for these complex alteration microtextures have yet to be explored. Here, we reevaluate the origin of these enigmatic microtextures from a strictly nonbiological standpoint, using a case study on submarine glasses from the western North Atlantic Ocean (DSDP 418A). By combining petrographic and SEM observations of corrosion microtextures at the glass-palagonite interface, considerations of the tectonic setting, measurement of U and Th concentrations of fresh basaltic glass by ICP-MS, and theoretical modelling of the present-day distribution of radiation damage in basaltic glass caused by radioactive decay of U and Th, we reinterpret these enigmatic microtextures as the end product of the preferential corrosion/dissolution of radiation damage (alpha-recoil tracks and fission tracks) in the glass by seawater, possibly combined with pressure solution etch-tunnelling. Our findings have important implications for geomicrobiology, astrobiological exploration of Mars, and understanding of the long-term breakdown of nuclear waste glass.