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Seafloor spreading centers: Hydrothermal systems
Marine Geology, 48 (1982) 171--173
171
Elsevier Scientific Publishing Company, Amsterdam -- Printed in The Netherlands
Book R e n e w
Seafloor Spreading Centers: Hydrothermal Systems. Benchmark Papers in Geology, Vol. 56. Peter A. Rona and R o b e r t P. Lowell (Editors). Dowden, Hutchinson & Ross, Stroudsburg, Penn., U.S.A., 1980, XV + 424 pp. (hard cover), US $45.00. Deep-sea hydrothermal springs, their mineralized deposits, their geochemical significance and, most of all, their wholly unexpected and fascinating biology have been much in the limelight in the last few years. In fact, the newspaper reports and popular magazine articles are not infrequently an important source of information in this fast-moving field. There is also a somewhat unseemly juggling for media attention that has not served the cause of progress well. This sober collection of the key publications that led to the discovery of the hydrothermal systems, and those that begin to describe their characteristics are a useful reminder that science is science only when it has been published in reputable scientific journals. The discovery of the hydrothermal springs is an example, somewhat rare in the earth sciences, of rigorous deduction from theory combined with inference from general observations. The classical paper by Lister in which he proposed hydrothermal cooling to account for the large deficit of conductive heatflow on the mid-ocean ridge exemplies the first, a large, perhaps too large, set of observational papers the second starting point. This last set includes all the fine originals on metal-bearing oceanic muds, on the alteration of the oceanic crust, and on the heatflow work that originally established the conductive heatflow deficit. The only thing that I can think of as missing is the set of thoughtful proposals by Roger Hart in Nature and in the Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, both in 1973. After numerous examples of these basic studies follow, finally, all of the papers extant at the time of compilation, apparently in 1978, that dealt with the hydrothermal springs themselves, good, bad, and indifferent. The only major subject missing, and left out by design, is the fascinating biology, but little was known about that at the time. The b o o k is faintly subdivided into three sections, a theoretical one containing Lister's paper as well as an example of the application of flow in porous media to oceanic crust, followed by an experimental one. There has been considerable work in the laboratory on hydrothermal systems, here represented by a sparse two papers, both important, but more would have been desirable and possible. The third section lumps all field work together in a crudely chronological framework; more structure might have been possible. The most conspicuous defect here is the absence of any treatment of the volcanology and structure of the mid-ocean ridge crest. These processes are fundamental to an understanding of the hydrothermal systems and large strides forward have been made in the field. A small, select set of papers ,would have much enhanced the breadth and depth of the book.
0025-3227/82/0000--0000/$02.75 © 1982 Elsevier Scientific Publishing Company
171
Elsevier Scientific Publishing Company, Amsterdam -- Printed in The Netherlands
Book R e n e w
Seafloor Spreading Centers: Hydrothermal Systems. Benchmark Papers in Geology, Vol. 56. Peter A. Rona and R o b e r t P. Lowell (Editors). Dowden, Hutchinson & Ross, Stroudsburg, Penn., U.S.A., 1980, XV + 424 pp. (hard cover), US $45.00. Deep-sea hydrothermal springs, their mineralized deposits, their geochemical significance and, most of all, their wholly unexpected and fascinating biology have been much in the limelight in the last few years. In fact, the newspaper reports and popular magazine articles are not infrequently an important source of information in this fast-moving field. There is also a somewhat unseemly juggling for media attention that has not served the cause of progress well. This sober collection of the key publications that led to the discovery of the hydrothermal systems, and those that begin to describe their characteristics are a useful reminder that science is science only when it has been published in reputable scientific journals. The discovery of the hydrothermal springs is an example, somewhat rare in the earth sciences, of rigorous deduction from theory combined with inference from general observations. The classical paper by Lister in which he proposed hydrothermal cooling to account for the large deficit of conductive heatflow on the mid-ocean ridge exemplies the first, a large, perhaps too large, set of observational papers the second starting point. This last set includes all the fine originals on metal-bearing oceanic muds, on the alteration of the oceanic crust, and on the heatflow work that originally established the conductive heatflow deficit. The only thing that I can think of as missing is the set of thoughtful proposals by Roger Hart in Nature and in the Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, both in 1973. After numerous examples of these basic studies follow, finally, all of the papers extant at the time of compilation, apparently in 1978, that dealt with the hydrothermal springs themselves, good, bad, and indifferent. The only major subject missing, and left out by design, is the fascinating biology, but little was known about that at the time. The b o o k is faintly subdivided into three sections, a theoretical one containing Lister's paper as well as an example of the application of flow in porous media to oceanic crust, followed by an experimental one. There has been considerable work in the laboratory on hydrothermal systems, here represented by a sparse two papers, both important, but more would have been desirable and possible. The third section lumps all field work together in a crudely chronological framework; more structure might have been possible. The most conspicuous defect here is the absence of any treatment of the volcanology and structure of the mid-ocean ridge crest. These processes are fundamental to an understanding of the hydrothermal systems and large strides forward have been made in the field. A small, select set of papers ,would have much enhanced the breadth and depth of the book.
0025-3227/82/0000--0000/$02.75 © 1982 Elsevier Scientific Publishing Company