Mantle serpentinization and associated hydrogen flux at North Atlantic magma-poor rifted margins

Abstract

Mantle serpentinization influences the rheology of altered peridotites and the global fluxes of energy and volatiles, the generation of seafloor and sub-seafloor chemolithotrophic life, and the carbon cycle. As a by-product of serpentinization, molecular hydrogen (H2) is generated, which supports chemosynthetic communities, and this mechanism may have driven the origin of life on early Earth. At continent-ocean transition zones (COTs) of magma-poor rifted margins, the mantle is exposed and hydrated over hundreds of kilometers across the rift, but the H2 fluxes associated with this process are poorly known. Here, we coupled a thermomechanical model with serpentinization reaction equations to estimate associated H2 release during mantle exhumation at COTs. This reproduced a tectonic structure similar to that of the West Iberia margin, one of the best-studied magma-poor margins. We estimated the rate of H2 production from mantle hydration at (7.5 ± 2.5) × 107 mol/(yr × km). By estimating the area of exhumed mantle from wide-angle seismic profiles at North Atlantic magma-poor margins, we calculated that the accumulated H2 production could have been as high as ~4.3 × 1018 mol (~8.6 × 1012 metric tons) prior to opening of the North Atlantic Ocean, at a rate of ~1.4 × 1017 mol/m.y. This is one quarter of the total predicted flux produced by the global system of mid-ocean ridges, thus highlighting the significance of H2 generation at magma-poor margins in global H2 fluxes, to hydrogenothropic microbial life, and, perhaps, as a potential energy source