Abstract
Understanding how in situ heating affects unlithified deep-sea sediments is important for both geological and practical reasons. Deep-sea drilling by Glomar Challenger over the past decade has revealed several places where magma has intruded sediment to form sills and the heat released by a large sheet of molten rock has been shown to produce substantial changes on the sediments in its vicinity1. Another example is the burial of hot canisters of high-level radioactive waste within the sediments of the ocean floor, which has been proposed as a solution to the problem of disposing of this material2. I consider here the physical effects which high temperatures might produce in deep-sea sediments. Substantial chemical effects are also likely, but these are not discussed. In practice, the physical and chemical effects would work together in modifying the original sediment.
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Francis, T. Thermal expansion effects in deep-sea sediments. Nature 299, 334–336 (1982). https://doi.org/10.1038/299334a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/299334a0
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