Heat and mass flux estimation of modern seafloor hydrothermal activity

Research on heat and mass flux yielded by modern seafloor hydrothermal activity is very important, because it is involved not only in the base of ocean environment research, but also in the historical evolution of seawater properties.Currently, estimating heat flux is based on the observation data of hydrothermal smokers, low-temperature diffusive flow and mid-ocean ridge mainly.But there are some faults, for example, there is lack of a concurrent conductive item in estimating the heat flux by smokers and the error between the half-space cooling model and the observation data is too large.So, three kinds of methods are applied to re-estimating the heat flux of hydrothermal activity resepectively, corresponding estimation is 97.359 GW by hydrothermal smoker and diffusive flow, 84.895 GW by hydrothermal plume, and 4.11 TW by exponential attenuation method put forward by this paper.Research on mass flux estimation is relatively rare, the main reason for this is insufficient field observation data.Mass fluxes of different elements are calculated using hydrothermal vent fluid data from the TAG hydrothermal area on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge for the first time.Difference of estimations by different methods reflects the researching extent of hydrothermal activity, and systematically in-situ observation will help to estimate the contribution of hydrothermal activity to ocean chemical environment, ocean circulation and global climate precisely.