
NSF Org: |
OCE Division Of Ocean Sciences |
Recipient: |
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Initial Amendment Date: | September 27, 2010 |
Latest Amendment Date: | September 27, 2010 |
Award Number: | 1059501 |
Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
Program Manager: |
Kandace Binkley
kbinkley@nsf.gov (703)292-7577 OCE Division Of Ocean Sciences GEO Directorate for Geosciences |
Start Date: | October 1, 2010 |
End Date: | September 30, 2011 (Estimated) |
Total Intended Award Amount: | $125,001.00 |
Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $125,001.00 |
Funds Obligated to Date: |
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History of Investigator: |
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Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
2425 CAMPUS RD SINCLAIR RM 1 HONOLULU HI US 96822-2247 (808)956-7800 |
Sponsor Congressional District: |
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Primary Place of Performance: |
2425 CAMPUS RD SINCLAIR RM 1 HONOLULU HI US 96822-2247 |
Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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Parent UEI: |
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NSF Program(s): | OCEAN TECH & INTERDISC COORDIN |
Primary Program Source: |
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Program Reference Code(s): |
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Program Element Code(s): |
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Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.050 |
ABSTRACT
The PI requests MRI funding to help complete the fabrication of 3 instrument sleds intended for deployment at North Pond in fall, 2011. The urgency necessitating a RAPID request is due to the lead time required to perform the work, thoroughly test the sleds and to correct/improve inevitable issues discovered during the prolonged testing phase. The PI?s feel that if they wait to restart the fabrication they jeopardize a unique opportunity to observe important changes in the basement environment following the installation of the three CORK observatories at North Pond, on the west flanks of the Mid Atlantic Ridge by IODP.
The circulation of the hydrothermal fluids profoundly influences the chemical and physical evolution of the aging basement of the ocean ridge flanks and basins, and results in globally significant heat flux, chemical fluxes to the overlying ocean, and the dynamic microbiospere. The proposed project develops innovative, versatile instrumentation for studying this remote, extreme biosphere, providing robust sampling/ experimental opportunities with respect to providing access to pristine basement fluids.
Broader Impacts: This project combines advanced technology development with exciting frontier science. Numerous graduate and undergraduate students with bee exposed to the whole development process as well as to the deployment and science output of the instrument sleds.
PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
Low temperature hydrothermal fluids (less than 100oC), vigorously circulate within the fractured and permeable volcanic rocks of the upper ocean crust, acting like the giant oceanic aquifer that it is. The origin of the circulating fluids is bottom seawater; the chemical reactions between the fluids and the host basalts greatly alter both the fluids and the rocks, providing temperature and chemical gradients that form habitats for a variety of microbial communities. Indeed, there is growing evidence that a diverse subseafloor biosphere extends throughout the immense volume of aging crust underlying the global system of mid-ocean ridge (MOR) axes, flanks and ocean basins. The continued development of Circulation Obviation Retrofit Kit (CORK) observatories (Fig. 1) installed into boreholes drilled through ocean sediments and further down in to the basaltic upper crust by the Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) and Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) boreholes offer unprecedented opportunities to study biogeochemical properties and microbial diversity in deep, sediment-buried crustal environments.
An important advancement of the new CORK observatories is the use of 1/8” to ½” inside diameter tubing (Fluid Delivery Lines, or FDLs) of non-corroding materials (316 stainless steel, or Teflon-like Tefzel) that run continuously from the upper basaltic crust through the sediments to the CORK platform at the seafloor. This grant focused on the completion of seafloor sampling systems designed to exploit new CORK FDLs to produce pristine crustal fluids for analytical and experimental procedures requiring relatively fresh or large fluid volumes. Because basement fluids are low biomass and microbial activity, the volume requirements for key analyses range from several millliliters (e.g., amino acids, low molecular weight organic acids) to tens of liters (e.g., particulate organic carbon/particulate nitrogen, some molecular biology, ATP (the currency of biochemical energy exchange), metabolic rate experiments, some organic carbon (lipid) biomarkers) to 100’s of liters (e.g., particulate organic carbon biomarkers and viral and environmental genomics). The system’s samplers must be compatible with the physical and chemical characteristics of crustal fluids: basically altered seawater with warm temperatures to >64oC, oxygen-rich (oxic) to oxygen-depleted (anoxic), depleted in Mg++, alkalinity, total CO2 and dissolved organic carbon, and mildly enriched in trace metals (e.g., Fe++ and Mn++), Si, ammonia and possibly methane and hydroden. The primary focus of this instrument development effort has been the GeoMICROBE sled (Fig. 1c, 2), intended for time-series, year-long autonomous deployments connected to CORK FDLs. Both systems are designed to meet delivery challenges imposed by the CORK FDLs while eliminating contamination.
Fluid flow, communications and power distribution of the new GeoMICROBE instrument sleds are depicted diagramtically in Fig. 3. Basically, the GeoMICROBE’s programmable central computer controller directs one of three primary valves to open (each valve is connected to a different FDL on the CORK) and the primary pump to start pumping crustal fluid up one of the CORK FDLs through the open valve and the primary pump itself, and then past a series of sensors and chemical analyzers. Along this path, secondary pumps pull a portion of the main fluid flow through one of two 25-port manifolds to a fluid collection or filtration device or to an in situ electrochemical analyzer. Other sensors include those that measure temperature, fluid flow rates, pH, and dissolved oxygen. All of the components are controlled to some extent by the...
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