Hydrographic Observations on the Red Sea Brines indicate a Marked Increase in Temperature

Brewer, Peter G.; Wilson, T.R.S.; Murray, James; Munns, Rana; Densmore, C. D.

doi:10.1038/231037a0

Cited by 54 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…In this respect, the brines appear to come from a large, permeable and communicating reservoir rather than being locally derived, as is presumed for interstitial waters analyzed from Sites 225, 227, and 228. likewise, the substantial heat suggests migration from deeper horizons. Findings of the diffusimeter studies, reported elsewhere in the volume, render it highly unlikely for any of the rocks studied here to yield any sustained flow such as characterizes input into the Atlantis II Deep (Brewer et al, 1971). Thus, the newly analyzed interstitial waters show that, whereas concentrated brines are to be expected at depth throughout the entire evaporite basin of the Red Sea, the brines at the evaporite-normal sediment interface will be variable and are quite different than the hot brines in the metalliferous deeps.…”

Section: Relation Of the Deep Brines To Fluids From The Atlantis II Deepmentioning

confidence: 73%

Interstitial Water Studies on Small Core Samples, Leg 23 (Red Sea)

Manheim¹,

Waterman²,

Woo³

et al. 1974

Initial Reports of the Deep Sea Drilling Project

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Sites 225, 277, and 228 in the central and southern-central Red Sea show classical diffusion gradients, approaching saturation in interstitial NaCl with depth as halite beds are approached. Site 228 did not actually encounter halite, but interstitial gradients suggest that it was only several tens of meters deeper than the bottom of the hole. K and Mg were characteristically depleted with depth until the evaporitic layers were approached. Then these constituents and also B and Li increased sharply. At Site 227, intra-halite pore fluids were strongly enriched in Mg (17 g/k Mg) and Ca (6.7 g/kg), indicating the presence of late stage evaporites, dominated by tachyhydrite, in the salt beds. The brines associated with evaporite beds resembled the brines in the hot brine metalliferous deeps only in total dissolved solids (about 250 g/kg); chemical composition was notably different. This confirms other evidence that the hot brine deep fluids do not have a local origin but probably rise from deeper layers through fracture channels. Site 229 showed a relatively small increase in chlorinity (21.5 g/kg at sea floor to 27 g/kg at 210 m). However, considering the extremely rapid rate of accumulation of Quaternary and Pleistocene sediments, this gradient is regarded as sufficient to suggest the presence of salt at depth here also. In contrast, an evaporitic episode in the Red Sea during the Wisconsin glacial maximum, as suggested by Friedman (1972), is not supported by the pore fluid data. Some evaporation and enhancement in salinity in the Red Sea may have occurred, but conditions sufficiently extreme to lay down evaporites in the sea as a whole probably did not occur. The hot brine deep sediments yielded interstitial fluids roughly comparable with previous analyses both of the hot brines themselves and of associated interstitial waters.

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Section: Relation Of the Deep Brines To Fluids From The Atlantis II Deepmentioning

confidence: 73%

Interstitial Water Studies on Small Core Samples, Leg 23 (Red Sea)

Manheim¹,

Waterman²,

Woo³

et al. 1974

Initial Reports of the Deep Sea Drilling Project

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“…The hot brines of the Atlantis II, Discovery, and Chain Deeps were systematically investigated in 1966 by R/V Chain and the results were presented in Degens and Ross (1969). Hydrographic observations (Brewer et al 1971) showed two vertically uniform brine layers where the temperature had increased by 2.7°C (lower convective layer) and by 5.6°C (upper convective layer) from November 1966 to February 1969. Schoell and Hartmann (1973) found a drop in temperature of the lower brine layer from southwestern to northern part of the Atlantis II Deep basin.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Thermal small steps staircase and layer migration in the Atlantis II Deep, Red Sea

et al. 2016

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Atlantis II Deep, a submarine basin of the Red Sea, is noteworthy because of its hydrothermally active brine pools. High-resolution temperature records from Poseidon Cruise during February 2011 revealed small steps thermal staircase in the lower transition zone from ≈2002 to 2008/2009 m depth at stations. Four vertically well-mixed convective layers, lower convective layer (LCL) and upper convective layers (UCL1–3), separated by high-temperature gradients at the interfaces were observed. The temperature of the layers UCL1–3 has dropped between 2008 and 2011. The top of UCL3 extends to about 2008/2009 m at stations and its average thickness has increased from 3.3 ± 0.5 m in 1992 to 7 m in 2011, whereas the thickness of layers UCL1–2 has decreased from 25.2 ± 0.3 m to 19.8 m and from 16.4 ± 0.5 m to 14.7 m, respectively, during this time. The upward buoyancy flux is 0.032 to 0.038 × 10−7 m2 s−3 which gives migration speed of UCL3 layer from 0.1 to 0.12 m year−1. With this speed, the thermal staircase ≈6 m thick will merge with UCL3 in 50 to 60 years increasing the thickness from 7 m to nearly 13 m

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“…Since its discovery in 1965, the Atlantis II Deep brine pool has been described as an anaerobic, hypersaline, and metalliferous environment. The temperature of the brine pool has increased from 56°C to 71°C in recent decades [22], [23], [24]. From the brine-sea water interface to the bottom of the brine pool, there are three upper convective layers and a lower layer characterized by strong temperature and chemical and metal ion gradients.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bacterial Niche-Specific Genome Expansion Is Coupled with Highly Frequent Gene Disruptions in Deep-Sea Sediments

Wang

Jing²,

Lee³

et al. 2011

PLoS ONE

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The complexity and dynamics of microbial metagenomes may be evaluated by genome size, gene duplication and the disruption rate between lineages. In this study, we pyrosequenced the metagenomes of microbes obtained from the brine and sediment of a deep-sea brine pool in the Red Sea to explore the possible genomic adaptations of the microbes in response to environmental changes. The microbes from the brine and sediments (both surface and deep layers) of the Atlantis II Deep brine pool had similar communities whereas the effective genome size varied from 7.4 Mb in the brine to more than 9 Mb in the sediment. This genome expansion in the sediment samples was due to gene duplication as evidenced by enrichment of the homologs. The duplicated genes were highly disrupted, on average by 47.6% and 70% for the surface and deep layers of the Atlantis II Deep sediment samples, respectively. The disruptive effects appeared to be mainly due to point mutations and frameshifts. In contrast, the homologs from the Atlantis II Deep brine sample were highly conserved and they maintained relatively small copy numbers. Likely, the adaptation of the microbes in the sediments was coupled with pseudogenizations and possibly functional diversifications of the paralogs in the expanded genomes. The maintenance of the pseudogenes in the large genomes is discussed.

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Hydrographic Observations on the Red Sea Brines indicate a Marked Increase in Temperature

Cited by 54 publications

References 12 publications

Interstitial Water Studies on Small Core Samples, Leg 23 (Red Sea)

Interstitial Water Studies on Small Core Samples, Leg 23 (Red Sea)

Thermal small steps staircase and layer migration in the Atlantis II Deep, Red Sea

Bacterial Niche-Specific Genome Expansion Is Coupled with Highly Frequent Gene Disruptions in Deep-Sea Sediments

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