Heavy Metal Meets Hard Rock: Battling through the Ocean Crust's Hardest Rocks (1 of 3) (IMAGE)
Caption
A granoblastic basalt viewed under the microscope (picture is 2.3 mm across). Magnification shows a rock formed of small rounded mineral grains annealed together (plagioclase: white, pyroxene: light green and light brown, and magnetite or ilmenite: black). They may look inoffensive, but these rocks are the hardest material ever drilled in more than four decades of scientific ocean drilling. The rocks are very abrasive and aggressive to the drilling and coring tools, and difficult to penetrate. However, the samples recovered provide a treasure trove of information, recording the rocks’ initial crystallization as a basaltic dike then their reheating at the top of the mid-ocean ridge magma chamber. These rocks represent the heat exchanger where thermal energy from the cooling and solidifying melt in the magma chamber below is exchanged with seawater infiltrating from the oceans, leading to the "black smoker-type" hot (>350°C) water vents on the seafloor.
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IODP/USIO
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