Slow advection of deep-sourced methane-enriched fluids shown to be quantitatively significant over time along oceanic strike-slip faults

IGI (Marianne Nuzzo) contributed to a research article published this month in Geology...

...(https://doi.org/10.1130/G49344.1) presenting novel porewater geochemistry and heat-flow data along a major oceanic strike-slip fault of the Horseshoe Abyssal Plain (northeastern Atlantic Ocean). These data, supported by transport-reaction modelling of fluxes, demonstrate that slow advection of deep-seated fluids is over time significant for oceanic element budgets. At the scale of the worldwide oceans, the impact on the emission of the potent greenhouse gas methane is therefore potentially non-negligible.