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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Mar. Sci.
Sec. Marine Biogeochemistry
Volume 11 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fmars.2024.1432122
This article is part of the Research Topic Hydrothermal and submarine volcanic activity: Impacts on ocean chemistry and plankton dynamics View all 7 articles

Hydrothermal alteration of seawater biogeochemistry in Deception Island (South Shetland Islands, Antarctica)

Provisionally accepted
Oleg Belyaev Oleg Belyaev 1*I. EMMA HUERTAS I. EMMA HUERTAS 1Gabriel Navarro Gabriel Navarro 1Silvia Amaya Vías Silvia Amaya Vías 1Mercedes De La Paz Mercedes De La Paz 2Erica Sparaventi Erica Sparaventi 1Sergio Heredia Sergio Heredia 1Camila F. Sukekava Camila F. Sukekava 3Luis M. Laglera Luis M. Laglera 4Antonio Tovar-Sanchez Antonio Tovar-Sanchez 1
  • 1 Institute of Marine Sciences of Andalusia, Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), Puerto Real, Spain
  • 2 Institute of Marine Research, Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), Vigo, Madrid, Spain
  • 3 Federal University of Rio Grande, Rio Grande, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
  • 4 University of the Balearic Islands, Palma de Mallorca, Spain

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Deception Island (DI) is an active volcanic caldera in the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica, with an inner bay, Port Foster, formed by an ancient eruption. The bay's seafloor hydrofracture system contains hydrothermal seeps and submarine vents, which are a source of trace metals (TMs) like Fe, Ni, Co, V, and greenhouse gases (GHGs) such as CO2 and CH4. This study presents measurements of TMs and GHGs in Port Foster's surface waters during January-February 2021 to characterize their spatial distribution. TMs concentrations in the northeastern region of the bay, particularly V (74 nM), Fe (361 nM), Co (3.9 nM) and Ni (17.2 nM), were generally higher than in the Southern Ocean, likely due to hydrothermal activity. As some TMs such as Fe are scarce in the SO and limit primary productivity, inputs of these nutrients from DI into surrounding waters may also regionally promote increased primary productivity. Higher surface temperature (ST), elevated partial pressure of CO2 (pCO2), and lower salinity were found near submarine fumaroles, with ST positively correlated with pCO2 and negatively with salinity. Although hydrothermal sites showed localized CO2 outgassing, the bay overall acted as a CO2 sink, with a median flux of -2.78 mol m-2 yr-1 with an interquartile range (IQR) of 3.84 mol m-2 yr-1. CH4 highest concentration levels were found in the southeastern sector. The median concentration was 8.9 nM with an IQR of 1.9 nM, making Port Foster a regional net CH4 source with a median flux of 9.7 μmol m-2 d-1 and an IQR of 3.4 μmol m-2 d-1. Ultimately, the analysis of spatial patterns of the measured variables suggested that fumaroles of DI may be playing a significant role in the alteration of regional seawater biogeochemistry.

    Keywords: Deception Island, Trace metals, Fumaroles, biogeochemistry, Hydrothermal Vents, Southern Ocean, Greenhouse Gaes emission

    Received: 13 May 2024; Accepted: 29 Jul 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Belyaev, HUERTAS, Navarro, Amaya Vías, De La Paz, Sparaventi, Heredia, Sukekava, Laglera and Tovar-Sanchez. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Oleg Belyaev, Institute of Marine Sciences of Andalusia, Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), Puerto Real, Spain

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