Estimating excess bound water content due to serpentinisation in mature slow-spreading oceanic crust using Vp/Vs
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Li, Lianjun
Collier, Jenny
Henstock, Tim
Goes, Saskia
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Mature oceanic crust carries chemically bound water which may be released in subduction zones or delivered to the deep mantle. Estimating water content in slow-spreading crust is challenging due to its complex lithology, requiring both P- and S-wave seismic velocity (Vp and Vs), the latter of which has been limited. Here we show 2D high-resolution Vp, Vs and excess bound water models due to serpentinisation of mature Atlantic crust near the Lesser Antilles. The ridge-parallel line crosses eight seafloor-spreading segments with equal numbers of magma-robust and magma-poor. Hydration is highly variable and mainly accommodated in strongly serpentinised peridotites, dominantly in magma-poor segments, which are not preferentially located near fracture zones. Serpentinised peridotites (17% of the crust) host four times more water than normal magmatic crust, increasing Atlantic subduction bound water budget by ~ 50%. This has implications back in geological time such as during supercontinent breakups when slow-spreading crust subduction was more common.
Date Issued
2025-07-23
Date Acceptance
2025-07-09
Citation
Nature Communications, 2025, 16
ISSN
2041-1723
Publisher
Nature Portfolio
Journal / Book Title
Nature Communications
Volume
16
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2025 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
License URL
Identifier
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/40701978
PII: 10.1038/s41467-025-62052-x
Publication Status
Published
Coverage Spatial
England
Article Number
6772
Date Publish Online
2025-07-23