Spatial and temporal variations in lithospheric strength along the Louisville Seamount Chain

该提案的第一阶段侧重于开发新技术和软件，以处理和显示收集到的岩石岩心物理特性数据，包括密度、孔隙度、颜色特性以及岩石中钾、钍和铀的浓度。这些工具将使我们能够更好地识别和量化这些性质的真实变化，而不是由岩石断裂和裂缝引起的虚假变化，并使未来的考察能够实时进行这些分析，这为考察期间和之后的地球化学和岩石学研究提供了有价值的信息。该方案的第二阶段旨在确定路易斯维尔海山的垂直运动，这些海山曾经在海平面或海平面以上，但现在位于水下一公里多的地方，以及这些运动如何反映每个海山下面的地球外部岩石圈的强度。当岩石圈在火山的负荷下“松弛”时，我们将观察这种强度在单个海山上如何随时间变化，以及它如何沿着路易斯维尔海山链的长度变化。这种沿链的变化应该主要反映每个火山形成时岩石圈年龄的变化，但也可能包含有关形成海底山的热点的影响和火山本身的地球化学的信息。

The first phase of this proposal focuses on developing new techniques and software to process and display data collected on the rock cores' physical properties, including density, porosity, colour properties, and concentration of potassium, thorium, and uranium in the rock. These tools will enable us to better identify and quantify real changes in these properties, rather than spurious variations caused by the breaks and fractures in the rock, and will enable future expeditions to do these analyses in real time, which provides valuable information for geochemical and petrological studies both during and after the expedition.The second phase of this proposal is directed at determining the vertical movements of the Louisville seamounts, which were once at or above sea level, but now lie over a kilometer under water, and how these movements reflect the strength of the outer part of the Earth, the lithosphere, underlying each seamount. We will be looking at how this strength varies over time at an individual seamount, as the lithosphere 'relaxes' under the load of the volcano, and also how it varies along the length of the Louisville Seamount Chain. This along-chain variation should predominantly reflect the variations in the age of the lithosphere when each volcano formed, but may also contain information about the impact of the hotspot that formed the seamounts and the geochemistry of the volcanoes themselves.