Stable carbon and oxygen isotopes from samples of the Anaximander seamounts in the eastern Mediterranean Sea

DOI

Porous seep-carbonates are exposed at mud volcanoes in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. The 13C-depleted aragonitic carbonates formed as a consequence of the anaerobic oxidation of methane in a shallow sub-surface environment. Besides the macroscopically visible cavernous fabric, extensive carbonate corrosion was revealed by detailed analysis. After erosion of the background sediments, the carbonates became exposed to oxygenated bottom waters that are periodically influenced by the release of methane and upward diffusion of hydrogen sulphide. We suggest that carbonate corrosion resulted from acidity locally produced by aerobic oxidation of methane and hydrogen sulphide in the otherwise, with respect to aragonite, oversaturated bottom waters. Although it remains to be tested whether the mechanisms of carbonate dissolution suggested herein are valid, this study reveals that a better estimate of the significance of corrosion is required to assess the amount of methane-derived carbon that is permanently fixed in seep-carbonates.

Identifier
DOI https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.762152
Related Identifier References https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-3121.2011.01000.x
Metadata Access https://ws.pangaea.de/oai/provider?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=datacite4&identifier=oai:pangaea.de:doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.762152
Provenance
Creator Himmler, Tobias ORCID logo; Brinkmann, Florian; Bohrmann, Gerhard ORCID logo; Peckmann, Jörn ORCID logo
Publisher PANGAEA
Publication Year 2011
Rights Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
OpenAccess true
Representation
Resource Type Publication Series of Datasets; Collection
Format application/zip
Size 2 datasets
Discipline Earth System Research
Spatial Coverage (30.247W, 35.325S, 30.256E, 35.336N); Amsterdam Mud Volcano
Temporal Coverage Begin 2006-11-28T08:38:00Z
Temporal Coverage End 2006-11-30T15:24:00Z