Collaborative Research: The Response of Continental Hydrothermal Systems to Tectonic, Magmatic, and Climatic Forcing

大陆热液系统具有重大的科学意义和现实意义，对地球至关重要。的热收支和地球化学循环。大陆热液系统是具有重要经济意义的金属矿床的主要来源，提供地热资源，支持刚刚开始探索的外来生态系统，并在某些情况下通过热液爆炸造成重大地质灾害。控制这些系统的地下条件和过程知之甚少，因为它们需要多相和多组分流体流过具有受多种地质和环境过程干扰的非均匀渗透率场的岩石。需要精心设计的多学科现场实验和建模工作，以了解驱动这些动态系统的耦合过程，并控制其对地质和环境强迫的响应。该项目的重点是量化大陆热液系统对构造，岩浆和气候过程的反应，时间尺度从几秒钟到几千年。PI解决了重要而及时的科学问题，例如：多相流体和溶解成分如何通过热液系统？这些系统如何重新分配元素以产生矿藏和微生物栖息地？地震和岩浆活动如何扰动热液系统？是什么引发了热液爆炸？环境过程和气候如何影响大陆热液系统？这项研究将涉及实地考察，数据分析和建模的组合。现场项目采用创新的仪器网络和沉积物取芯活动相结合，将通过建模活动进行整合，以研究黄石湖热液系统对构造，岩浆和气候强迫的响应。黄石湖是这项研究的理想地点，因为它拥有一个活跃的热液系统，位于一个构造和岩浆活动水平高的地区，受到冰后期广泛气候条件的影响。研究活动将包括地球化学、地震学、地质学、大地测量学、热流、微体古生物学、湖沼学、古气候学、统计学、分析建模和数值建模，所有这些都是解开驱动系统行为的耦合过程所必需的。工作在湖底系统提供了一个特殊的机会，研究强迫响应关系的扩展范围内的时间尺度跨越超过11个数量级。

Continental hydrothermal systems have immense scientific and practical significance and are critically important to the Earth?s thermal budget and geochemical cycles. Continental hydrothermal systems are a primary source of economically important metal deposits, provide geothermal resources, support exotic ecosystems that are just beginning to be explored, and in some settings pose a significant geologic hazard via hydrothermal explosions. The subsurface conditions and processes that control these systems are poorly understood because they entail the flow of multi-phase and multi-component fluids through rocks with heterogeneous permeability fields that are perturbed by a multitude of geological and environmental processes. Carefully designed multidisciplinary field experiments and modeling efforts are required to understand the coupled processes that drive these dynamic systems and control their response to geological and environmental forcing. This project is focused on quantifying the response of continental hydrothermal systems to tectonic, magmatic, and climatic processes operating on time-scales from seconds to thousands of years. The PIs address important and timely scientific questions, such as: How do multi-phase fluids and dissolved constituents flux through hydrothermal systems? How do these systems redistribute elements to produce mineral deposits and microbial habitats? How do earthquakes and magmatic activity perturb hydrothermal systems? What triggers hydrothermal explosions? How do environmental processes and climate affect continental hydrothermal systems? The study will involve a combination of fieldwork, data analysis, and modeling. The field program uses a combination of innovative instrument networks and sediment coring activities that will be integrated through modeling activities to study the response of the Yellowstone Lake hydrothermal system to tectonic, magmatic, and climatic forcing. Yellowstone Lake is an ideal site for this research because it hosts an active hydrothermal system located in a region with high levels of tectonic and magmatic activity that has been influenced by a broad range of climate conditions in postglacial times. Research activities will include components of geochemistry, seismology, geology, geodesy, heat flow, micropaleontology, limnology, paleoclimatology, statistics, analytical modeling, and numerical modeling, all of which are essential for unraveling the coupled processes that drive system behavior. Working on a lake-floor system provides an exceptional opportunity to study forcing-response relationships on an expanded range of time-scales spanning more than 11 orders of magnitude.