New high-resolution bathymetric data from Atlantis Massif and surrounding seafloor (30°N, Mid-Atlantic Ridge) records avolcanic extension associated with the formation of the axial rift valley floor, following the tectonic truncation of an active corrugated oceanic detachment fault system. The truncated Atlantis detachment is tectonically uplifted by a high-angle valley-bounding normal fault, formed after westward migration of the ridge at ∼0.4 to 0.1 Ma. Detachment fault remnants, with preserved corrugations, lie within the present-day rift valley seafloor, and demonstrate that a ∼20 km ridge section in the immediate vicinity of the Atlantis Fracture zone has not recorded any recent volcanic activity. Avolcanic extension may thus occur locally at the slow-spreading Mid-Atlantic Ridge, albeit for limited periods of time (less than a few hundred thousand years). The new fault dissecting the detachment shows a throw of ∼2800 m, partly due to flexural uplift. Emplacement of the Lost City hydrothermal site occurred at a late stage post-dating the detachment truncation and avolcanic rift valley formation. From the inferred timing of the westward ridge axis shift we calculate uplift rates ≥ 7 mm/yr, possibly as high as 33 mm/yr, which are equivalent to or greater than the fastest vertical uplift rates of active normal faults measured to date on Earth (Gulf of Corinth). Geomorphologic observations also demonstrate that mass wasting efficiently reworks the seafloor topography. We obtain local incision and erosion rates ≥1-2 mm/yr locally, and as high as 4-8 mm/yr, depending on the assumed age for the rift bonding fault (0.4 vs. 0.1 Ma respectively). Our results suggest that (1) avolcanic extension may occur locally at the slow-spreading Mid-Atlantic Ridge, albeit for limited periods of time (less than a few 100s of kyrs), and (2) document that shifts in axial valley location related to the abrupt abandonment of detachment faults is a first-order process in the asymmetric accretion of slow-spread oceanic lithosphere.

When hydrothermal activity ceases at black-smoker chimneys on mid-ocean ridges, populations of associated invertebrates hosting chemoautotrophic endosymbionts decline and then disappear, but the chimneys can persist on the seabed as relicts. Suspension-feeding brisingid seastars colonize hydrothermally inactive (relict) chimneys on the East Pacific Rise (EPR), though their distribution relative to available hard substrata and proximity to hydrothermal activity is poorly documented. In this study, brisingid abundance on sulfide and basalt substrata was assessed along an ∼3,700 m ROV Jason II transect at the summit of Pito Seamount (SE Pacific; ∼2,275 m). Brisingids were non-randomly distributed, with highest densities (up to ∼300 m –2 ) on relict sulfides chimneys near active black smokers. Brisingids were relatively uncommon on basalt substrata, and absent on black smokers. We infer that both relict sulfide structures and proximity to black smokers play key roles in the maintenance of dense brisingid populations on Pito Seamount and in similar environments on the EPR. Our observations suggest that experimental introduction of “artificial” relict chimneys providing microtopographic relief could test whether such an approach might mitigate potential impacts of mineral extraction on populations of suspension-feeding invertebrates.

Logging data are measurements of physical properties of the formation surrounding a borehole, acquired in situ after completion of coring (wireline logging) or during drilling (Logging-While-Drilling, LWD). The range of data (resistivity, gamma radiation, velocity, density, borehole images,…) in any hole depends on the scientific objectives and operational constraints.

Earth’s magnetic field is recorded as oceanic crust cools, generating lineated magnetic anomalies that provide the pattern of polarity reversals for the past 160 million years 1 . In the lower (gabbroic) crust, polarity interval boundaries are proxies for isotherms that constrain cooling and hence crustal accretion. Seismic observations 2 – 4 , geospeedometry 5 – 7 and thermal modelling 8 – 10 of fast-spread crust yield conflicting interpretations of where and how heat is lost near the ridge, a sensitive indicator of processes of melt transport and crystallization within the crust. Here we show that the magnetic structure of magmatically robust fast-spread crust requires that crustal temperatures near the dike–gabbro transition remain at approximately 500 degrees Celsius for 0.1 million years. Near-bottom magnetization solutions over two areas, separated by approximately 8 kilometres, highlight subhorizontal polarity boundaries within 200 metres of the dike–gabbro transition that extend 7–8 kilometres off-axis. Oriented samples with multiple polarity components provide direct confirmation of a corresponding horizontal polarity boundary across an area approximately one kilometre wide, and indicate slow cooling over three polarity intervals. Our results are incompatible with deep hydrothermal cooling within a few kilometres of the axis 2 , 7 and instead suggest a broad, hot axial zone that extends roughly 8 kilometres off-axis in magmatically robust fast-spread ocean crust.

Logging data are measurements of physical properties of the formation surrounding a borehole, acquired in situ after completion of coring (wireline logging) or during drilling (Logging-While-Drilling, LWD). The range of data (resistivity, gamma radiation, velocity, density, borehole images,…) in any hole depends on the scientific objectives and operational constraints.

Abstract Magnetic surveys at tectonic windows that expose magnetic polarity boundaries provide the unique opportunity to explore the pattern of magnetization variations within the oceanic crust and determine the spatially averaged magnetizations of source layers that contribute to marine magnetic anomalies. Here we investigate the C2An.2n/C2An.2r polarity boundary in the tectonic window of Pito Deep, which has exposed a cross‐section through lavas, dikes, and the uppermost kilometer of gabbros at fast‐spread ocean crust. Near‐bottom magnetic anomaly surveys from two expeditions have been incorporated into a penalized least squares inversion method. The application of this method to magnetic data allows us to account for complex bathymetry and differing observation altitudes. When correlated with rock type, the magnetization solution shows median values of 4.4 ± 2.7 A/m for lavas, 2.0 ± 1.9 A/m for dikes, and 1.9 ± 1.9 A/m for gabbros. On a regional scale, lavas and dikes have a different polarity of magnetization than the underlying gabbros. The geometry of the polarity boundary is compatible with a large (~6 km) horizontal offset or very shallow dip of isotherms at the dike/gabbro boundary, and indicates that the zone of melt is significantly wider across axis than predicted from seismic tomography models that suggest pervasive cooling throughout the lower crust within a few kilometers of the spreading center.

The tectonic window at Pito Deep, in the southern Pacific Ocean, permits study of the formative processes of uppermost East Pacific Rise (EPR) gabbroic ocean crust. Here we present a detailed microstructural and crystallographic study of 17 gabbroic samples fromthe uppermost similar to 800m of plutonic crust exposed in the Pito Deep Rift. We integrate two-and three-dimensional measurements of crystal size, shape, spatial distribution and orientation, with petrographic observations and geochemical data to constrain the formation of fast spread gabbroic ocean crust. The shallowest samples, collected < 55 metres below the sheeted dikes (mbsd), have evolved bulk-rock compositions, elongate plagioclase crystals, a clear plagioclase shape- and crystallographic-preferred orientation, and preserve only minor amounts of intracrystalline strain. The characteristics of these rocks and their proximity to the sheeted dike complex, suggests they formed by crystallization at the lateral tip of an axial melt lens that solidified as it moved off axis. Underlying samples from 96-724 mbsd, record more primitive bulk-rock compositions, less elongate plagioclase crystals and exhibit increasing strength of both plagioclase shape- and crystallographic-preferred orientation with depth below the sheeted dikes. These samples host plagioclase crystals that show increasing intracrystalline strain with depth, suggesting magmatic to hypersolidus submagmatic flow within the mush zone beneath the axial melt lens. These observations, together with inclined-to-steeply dipping mineral layering preserved below similar to 180 mbsd, are interpreted to record the downward transport of crystal-rich magma originating at the bottom of the melt lens through the uppermost kilometre of the mush zone at the EPR. The location of initial crystallization along the floor of the axial melt lens determines the magmatic processes that affect the crystal-rich magma en route to solidification as lower ocean crust.

809 deep IODP Hole U1473A at Atlantis Bank, SWIR, is 2.2 km from 1,508-mHole 735B and 1.4 from 158-m Hole 1105A. With mapping, it provides the first 3-D view of the upper levels of a 660-km(2) lower crustal batholith. It is laterally and vertically zoned, representing a complex interplay of cyclic intrusion, and ongoing deformation, with kilometer-scale upward and lateral migration of interstial melt. Transform wall dives over the gabbro-peridotite contact found only evolved gabbro intruded directly into the mantle near the transform. There was no high-level melt lens, rather the gabbros crystallized at depth, and then emplaced into the zone of diking by diapiric rise of a crystal mush followed by crystal-plastic deformation and faulting. The residues to mass balance the crust to a parent melt composition lie at depth below the center of the massif-likely near the crust-mantle boundary. Thus, basalts erupted to the seafloor from >1,550 mbsf. By contrast, the Mid-Atlantic Ridge lower crust drilled at 23 degrees N and at Atlantis Massif experienced little high-temperature deformation and limited late-stage melt transport. They contain primitive cumulates and represent direct intrusion, storage, and crystallization of parental MORB in thinner crust below the dike-gabbro transition. The strong asymmetric spreading of the SWIR to the south was due to fault capture, with the northern rift valley wall faults cutoff by a detachment fault that extended across most of the zone of intrusion. This caused rapid migration of the plate boundary to the north, while the large majority of the lower crust to spread south unroofing Atlantis Bank and uplifting it into the rift mountains.

This chapter documents the procedures and methods employed in the various shipboard laboratories of the R/V JOIDES Resolution during International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) Expedition 360. This information applies only to shipboard work described in the Expedition Reports section of the Expedition 360 Proceedings volume, which used the shipboard sample registry, imaging and analytical instruments, core description tools, and the Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) database. Methods for shore-based analysis of Expedition 360 samples and data will be described in the individual peer-reviewed scientific contributions to be published in the Research Results section of the Expedition 360 Proceedings volume and in international scientific journals and books.