ALBERT

Description: The deep sea is often viewed as a vast, dark, remote, and inhospitable environment, yet the deep ocean and seafloor are crucial to our lives through the services and provisions that they provide. Our understanding of how the deep sea functions remains limited, but when treated synoptically, a diversity of provisioning, regulating and cultural services become apparent. The biological pump transports carbon from the atmosphere into deep-ocean water masses which are separated over prolonged periods, reducing the impact of anthropogenic carbon release. Microbial oxidation of methane keeps another potent greenhouse gas out of the atmosphere while trapping carbon in authigenic carbonates. Nutrient regeneration by all faunal size classes provides the elements necessary to fuel surface productivity and fisheries, and microbial processes detoxify a diversity of compounds. Each of these processes occur on a very small scale, yet considering the vast area over which they occur they become important for the global functioning of the ocean. The deep sea also provides a diversity of resources, including fish stocks, enormous bioprospecting potential, and elements and energy reserves that are currently being extracted and will be increasingly important in the near future. Society benefits from the intrigue and mystery, the strange life forms, and the great unknown which has acted as a muse for inspiration and imagination since near the beginning of civilization. While many functions occur on the scale of microns to meters and time scales up to years, the derived services that result are only useful after centuries of integrated activity. This vast dark habitat, that covers the majority of the globe, harbors processes that directly impact humans in a diversity of ways, however the same traits that differentiate it from terrestrial or shallow marine systems also result in a greater need for integrated spatial and temporal understanding as it experiences increased use by society.

Description: The deep sea is often viewed as a vast, dark, remote, and inhospitable environment, yet the deep ocean and seafloor are crucial to our lives through the services that they provide. Our understanding of how the deep sea functions remains limited, but when treated synoptically, a diversity of supporting, provisioning, regulating and cultural services becomes apparent. The biological pump transports carbon from the atmosphere into deep-ocean water masses that are separated over prolonged periods, reducing the impact of anthropogenic carbon release. Microbial oxidation of methane keeps another potent greenhouse gas out of the atmosphere while trapping carbon in authigenic carbonates. Nutrient regeneration by all faunal size classes provides the elements necessary for fueling surface productivity and fisheries, and microbial processes detoxify a diversity of compounds. Each of these processes occur on a very small scale, yet considering the vast area over which they occur they become important for the global functioning of the ocean. The deep sea also provides a wealth of resources, including fish stocks, enormous bioprospecting potential, and elements and energy reserves that are currently being extracted and will be increasingly important in the near future. Society benefits from the intrigue and mystery, the strange life forms, and the great unknown that has acted as a muse for inspiration and imagination since near the beginning of civilization. While many functions occur on the scale of microns to meters and timescales up to years, the derived services that result are only useful after centuries of integrated activity. This vast dark habitat, which covers the majority of the globe, harbors processes that directly impact humans in a variety of ways; however, the same traits that differentiate it from terrestrial or shallow marine systems also result in a greater need for integrated spatial and temporal understanding as it experiences increased use by society. In this manuscript we aim to provide a foundation for informed conservation and management of the deep sea by summarizing the important role of the deep sea in society.

Description: The vast majority of freshly produced oceanic dissolved organic carbon (DOC) is derived from marine phytoplankton, then rapidly recycled by heterotrophic microbes. A small fraction of this DOC survives long enough to be routed to the interior ocean, which houses the largest and oldest DOC reservoir. DOC reactivity depends upon its intrinsic chemical composition and extrinsic environmental conditions. Therefore, recalcitrance is an emergent property of DOC that is analytically difficult to constrain. New isotopic techniques that track the flow of carbon through individual organic molecules show promise in unveiling specific biosynthetic or degradation pathways that control the metabolic turnover of DOC and its accumulation in the deep ocean. However, a multivariate approach is required to constrain current carbon fluxes so that we may better predict how the cycling of oceanic DOC will be altered with continued climate change. Ocean warming, acidification, and oxygen depletion may upset the balance between the primary production and heterotrophic reworking of DOC, thus modifying the amount and/or composition of recalcitrant DOC. Climate change and anthropogenic activities may enhance mobilization of terrestrial DOC and/or stimulate DOC production in coastal waters, but it is unclear how this would affect the flux of DOC to the open ocean. Here, we assess current knowledge on the oceanic DOC cycle and identify research gaps that must be addressed to successfully implement its use in global scale carbon models.

Description: Most tectonic models consider that the “Samail subduction zone” was the only subduction zone at the mid-Cretaceous convergent Arabian margin. We report four new Rb-Sr multimineral isochron ages from high-pressure (HP) rocks and a major shear zone of the uppermost Ruwi-Yiti Unit of the Saih Hatat window in the Oman Mountains of NE Arabia. These ages demand a reassessment of the intraoceanic suprasubduction-zone evolution that formed the Samail Ophiolite and its metamorphic sole in the Samail subduction zone. Our new ages constrain waning HP metamorphism of the Ruwi subunit at ∼99-96 Ma and associated deformation in the Yenkit shear zone between ∼104 and 93 Ma. Our ages for late stages of deformation and HP metamorphism (thermal gradients of ∼8–10°C km−1) overlap with published ages of ∼105-102 Ma for Samail-subduction-zone prograde-to-peak metamorphism (thermal gradients of ∼20–25°C km−1), subsequent decompressional partial melting of the metamorphic sole and suprasubduction-zone crystallization of the Samail Ophiolite (thermal gradients of ∼30°C km−1) between ∼100 and 93 Ma. Thermal considerations demand that two subduction zones existed at the mid-Cretaceous Arabian margin. High-pressure metamorphism of the Ruwi-Yiti rocks occurred in a mature, thermally equilibrated “Ruwi subduction zone” that formed at ∼110 Ma. Initiation of the infant, thermally unequilibrated and, thus, immature, outboard intraoceanic Samail subduction zone occurred at ∼105 Ma. The Samail Ophiolite and its metamorphic sole were then thrust over the exhuming Ruwi-Yiti HP rocks and onto the Arabian margin after ∼92 Ma, while the bulk of the Saih Hatat HP rocks below the Ruwi-Yiti Unit started to be underthrust in the Ruwi subduction zone.

Description: The Saih Hatat Dome in the Al Hajar Mountains provides an outstanding opportunity to study subduction/exhumation processes coeval with obduction of the Semail Ophiolite. The exceptionally good outcrop conditions offer a unique opportunity to constrain the geometry of this subduction/obduction complex. In this review, the metamorphic, structural, and tectonic evolution of the Oman high-pressure complex in the Saih Hatat Dome is discussed. New structural cross-sections are developed and are used to interpret a geometrically feasible tectonic model for the Saih Hatat Dome. Our review highlights the importance of two major tectonic boundaries: (1) The As Sheik Shear Zone which separates the high pressure rocks of the As Sifah Unit (1.7–2.3 GPa and 510–550 °C) from the overlying Hulw Unit (1.0–1.2 GPa and 250–300 °C), and was active at ~79–76 Ma; and (2) the Upper Plate–Lower Plate Discontinuity, which forms a major surface in the landscape and developed by ~76–74 Ma, cutting through structures of the HP rocks in the lower plate (footwall). This discontinuity is associated with a pronounced strain gradient, notably in its upper plate (hanging wall), and separates rocks that have markedly different deformation geometry. The Upper Plate–Lower Plate Discontinuity initiated with a modest dip angle, making it a neutral structure in terms of crustal shortening vs extension. As a result, there is no discernable break in P-T conditions across it. The upper plate is dominated by the Saih Hatat Fold Nappe, forming between ~76 and 70 Ma. Subsequently, the upper plate has been dissected by a number of NNE-dipping thrusts at ~70–66 Ma, followed by normal faults at 〈~66 Ma. Our review and tectonic model indicate that the Oman high-pressure rocks were exhumed in a contractional tectonic setting that was possibly driven by forced return flow assisted by buoyancy forces. During this exhumation, when the rocks reached the greenschist-facies middle crust the Upper Plate–Lower Plate Discontinuity formed, as a shallow, south-dipping backthrust. Final exhumation of the high-P rocks was achieved by late normal faults after ~66 Ma.

Description: The Samail Ophiolite in the Oman Mountains formed at a Cretaceous subduction zone that was part of a wider Neo-Tethys plate-boundary system. The original configuration and evolution of this plate-boundary system is hidden in a structurally and metamorphically complex nappe stack below the Samail Ophiolite. Previous work provided evidence for high-temperature metamorphism high in the nappe pile (in the metamorphic sole of the Samail Ophiolite), and high-pressure metamorphism in the deepest part of the nappe pile (Saih Hatat window), possibly reflecting a downward younging, progressive accretion history at the Samail subduction zone. However, there is evidence that the two subduction-related metamorphic events are disparate, but temporally overlapping during the mid-Cretaceous. We present the first geochronologic dataset across the entire high-pressure nappe stack below the Samail Ophiolite, and the shear zones between the high-pressure nappes. Our 22 new Rbsingle bondSr multimineral isochron ages from the Saih Hatat window, along with independent new field mapping and kinematic reconstructions, constrain the timing and geometry of tectonometamorphic events. Our work indicates the existence of a high-pressure metamorphic event in the nappes below the ophiolite that was synchronous with the high-temperature conditions in the metamorphic sole. We argue that the thermal conditions of these synchronous metamorphic events can only be explained through the existence of two Cretaceous subduction zones/segments that underwent distinctly different thermal histories during subduction infancy. We infer that these two subduction zones initially formed at two perpendicular subduction segments at the Arabian margin and subsequently rotated relative to each other and, as a consequence, their records became juxtaposed: (1) The high-temperature metamorphic sole and the Samail Ophiolite both formed above the structurally higher, outboard, ‘hot’ and rotating Samail subduction zone and, (2) the high-pressure nappes developed within the structurally lower, inboard, ‘cold’ Ruwi subduction zone. We conclude that the formation and evolution of both subduction zones were likely controlled by the density structure of the mafic-rock-rich Arabian rifted margin and outermost Arabian Platform, and the subsequent arrival of the buoyant, largely mafic-rock-free, full-thickness Arabian lithosphere, which eventually halted subduction at the southern margin of Neo-Tethys. Previous article in issue