Barbados Accretionary Prism: A Seismic, Geothermal, Geochemical Study of Fluid Explusion Features

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This study is a renewal of an earlier study of accretionary processes and related phenomena on the Barbados Ridge accretionary complex. This work began as a joint program between scientists at Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory in the U.S. and the University of Birmingham, in the U.K. The principal objective of work under this extension is to further explore fluid expulsion features, heat flow and pore water geochemistry near the tow of the Barbados accretionary complex, which deep ocean drilling and geothermal surveys are shown to be prevalent on the lower slope of the complex. The objective is to quantify the flux from and define the geometry of pathways for fluid flow. The proposed research will be carried out on a cruise that is already planned for University of Birmingham scientists to work on the R/V CONRAD. %%% When oceanic lithosphere is subducted, some of the sediment lying on top of the lithospheric plate is scraped off and forms the accretionary wedge complex. Deformation of the accretionary wedge complex is often associated with the expulsion of pore fluids and sites of pore fluid expulsion have been shown to be locales of biological communities. This project is directed towards understanding the nature of pore fluid chemistry and fluid pathways in a variety of environments on an accretionary wedge complex that is readily accessible to east coast scientists.