High-resolution multibeam bathymetry of the northern Mid-Atlantic Ridge at 45–46° N: the Moytirra hydrothermal field

• Autor(a) principal: Somoza, Luis
• Data de Publicação: 2021
• Outros Autores: Medialdea, Teresa, González, Javier, Marchancoses, Sara, Candón, Jose, Cid, Constantino, Calado, António, Afonso, Andreia, Pinto Ribeiro, Luísa, Blasco, Iker, Albiquerque, Mónica, Ascensio-Ramos, María, Bettencourt, Renato, De Ignacio, Cristina, López-Pamo, Ramos, Bruno, Rincón-Tomás, Blanca, Santofimia, Esther, Souto, Miguel, Tojeira, Inês, Viegas, Cláudia, Madureira, Pedro
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10174/32721; https://doi.org/10.1080/17445647.2021.1898485
• topic: Multibeam bathymetry; Mid-Atlantic Ridge; Moytirra; hydrothermal vents; seafloor massive sulfides

This work presents a new high-resolution multibeam bathymetric map of a segment of active deep sea-floor spreading in the Atlantic Ocean, the northern Mid-Atlantic Ridge (MAR) at 45–46º N. New high-resolution bathymetry data were acquired using an Atlas multibeam echosounder onboard the research vessel Sarmiento de Gamboa during the EXPLOSEA-2 survey in 2019. The final map of the MAR (50 m cell grid size) at the original scale of 1:200,000 shows a segment of 140 × 35 km of the MAR, at water depths from 715 to 3700 m. This new high-resolution bathymetric map allows to better defining the submarine morphology of the Moytirra hydrothermal active field, the only high-temperature field identified between the Azores Archipelago (Portugal) and Iceland. ROV submarine observations reaching the deepest part of the system for the first time show giant anhydrite-sulfide chimneys up to 20 m high, active strong black smokers and polymetallic massive sulfides.