Authors
Lijo Mathew
Abstract
Red Sea which sometimes referred as Erythraean Sea is a bay that is found between Africa and Asia between Salt tectonics and has intensely shaped the sediment that is superimposed assemblies. There are some places beneath the sea or ocean where the layer of salt scatter and spread up itself in such a way that it forms the arrangements of sediments in shape of domes, forming outsized hills like structure at the seabed. While at some other places, the salt is used to ooze out, which is the leading reason that why the sediment flows out towards the sea bottom where the sea basin is shallow. Salt migration mounting superficially is the chief power that guards this oozing motion. The association of chemosynthetic groups and salt may be ranges a far unpretentious perforation deposits of hydrocarbons. When seawater interacts with deposits of salt, it gets liquefied and the consequential outcome appears as brines which is saltier countless times than natural occurring seawater. They are majorly found in the Gulf of Mexico. These heavy brine streams in network that are outside of the seabed consequence into forming pond like structures, and sometimes even lagoons of brine which are huge in dimension. Among these few of them don’t have an evident synthesis of chemical action. While some other brines, they have impenetrable floor-coverings of methane-using mussels forming into tassels and twist like network all around its peripheral edge. The reasons for these disparity is not acknowledged yet. In this paper, we have studied the brine pools of the Red Sea and its habitat. Keywords: Red Sea, Brine, Hyper-saline, Temperature, Salt-tectonic, Bay.
Introduction
Brine pools area tome of hyper saline water which is way denser than its surrounding water forming anywhere from a pool to a lake on the bed of the ocean with a characteristic water's edge and surface. They are mostly found the Red Sea and in the Bay of Mexico. It requires a submersible to down thrust to actually penetrate one of these pools. As they are a highly dense area in oceans, denser than the surrounding water of the ocean. They are also highly concentrated in salinity that’s why they’re hyper saline because the salt concentration of brine pools is much higher than the ocean water and equipment, such as a submersible, actually float on its surface rather than diving deep down into it.
Formation of Brine Pools
Brine pools take place at most convergent or divergent plate boundaries. Brine pools are found the most remarkably in the Red Sea where Arabian plates and the African plates move distantly in contrary directions. Atlantis Deep II which is world’s one of the biggest deep-sea brine pool is actually a consequence of actions of these tectonic plates. There is brine deposit of width with almost of 13 km with depth ranging approx. 200m and this dimension has stretched out as brine structure for over 2000m in range beneath the sea in the ocean. This brine is considered as the hottest among all the brine structures in the world as its temperature at its deepest point increases up to almost 68.2 degrees Celsius. The concentration of saltiness in the brine also escalates as we go deeper into its bottom and touches almost a maximum of 25.7% salt- hyper salinity.
References
Anschutz, Pierre, et al. “The Development of Layering, Fluxes through Double-Diffusive Interfaces, and Location of Hydrothermal Sources of Brines in the Atlantis II Deep: Red Sea.” Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, vol. 103, no. C12, 1998, pp. 27809–27819., doi: 10.1029/98jc02401
Arz, Helge W., et al. “A Pronounced Dry Event Recorded Around 4.2 Ka in Brine Sediments from the Northern Red Sea.” Quaternary Research, vol. 66, no.
Bischoff, James L. “Red Sea Geothermal Brine Deposits: Their Mineralogy, Chemistry, and Genesis.” Hot Brines and Recent Heavy Metal Deposits in the Red Sea, 1969, pp. 368–401. doi:10.1007/978-3-662-28603-6_37.
Boetius, A., and S. Joye. “Thriving in Salt.” Science, vol. 324, no. 5934, 2009, pp. 1523–1525. doi:10.1126/science.1172979.
Brine-Caption: Pools in Seas in Oceans. Extreme Marine, extrememarine.org.uk/2016/11/brine-ception-pools-in-seas-in-oceans/.
Carney, Bob. “Lakes within Oceans.” NOAA Ocean Exploration and Research: Annual Report 2014: Ocean Exploration Benefits NOAA and the Nation, 2002, oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/explorations/02mexico/background/brinepool/brinepool.html.
Danielsson, Lars-Göran, et al. “Chemical Investigations of Atlantis II and Discovery Brines in the Red Sea.” Geochimica Et Cosmochimica Acta, vol. 44, no. 12, 1980, pp. 2051–2065., doi: 10.1016/0016-7037(80)90203-3.
Erickson, Albert J., and Gene Simmons. “Thermal Measurements in the Red Sea Hot Brine Pools.” Hot Brines and Recent Heavy Metal Deposits in the Red Sea, 1969, pp. 114–121. doi:10.1007/978-3-662-28603-6_11.
Miller, A. R., et al. “Hot Brines and Recent Iron Deposits in Deeps of the Red Sea.” Science Direct, vol. 30, no. 3, Mar. 1966, pp. 341–350., www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/001670376690007X.03, 2006, pp. 432–441., doi:10.1016/j.yqres.2006.05.006
Ross, David A. “Temperature Structure of the Red Sea Brines.” Hot Brines and Recent Heavy Metal Deposits in the Red Sea, 1969, pp. 148–152. doi:10.1007/978-3-662-28603-6_15.
Sayed, Ahmed, et al. “A Novel Mercuric Reductase from the Unique Deep Brine Environment of Atlantis II in the Red Sea.” Journal of Biological Chemistry, vol. 289, no. 3, 2013, pp. 1675–1687. doi:10.1074/jbc.m113.493429
Siam, Rania, et al. “Unique Prokaryotic Consortia in Geochemically Distinct Sediments from Red Sea Atlantis II and Discovery Deep Brine Pools.” PLoS ONE, vol. 7, no. 8, 2012, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0042872.
Swift, Stephen A., et al. “Vertical, Horizontal, and Temporal Changes in Temperature in the Atlantis II and Discovery Hot Brine Pools, Red Sea.” Deep Sea Research Part I: Oceanographic Research Papers, vol. 64, 2012, pp. 118–128. doi:10.1016/j.dsr.2012.02.006.
Turner, J. S. “A Physical Interpretation of the Observations of Hot Brine Layers in the Red Sea.” Hot Brines and Recent Heavy Metal Deposits in the Red Sea, 1969, pp. 164–173. doi:10.1007/978-3-662-28603-6_18
How to cite this article?
| APA Style |
Mathew, L. (2019). Brine Pools and its Habitat in the Red Sea. Academic Journal of Ocean Sciences, 1(1), 21-27 |
| Chicago Style | |
| MLA Style | |
| DOI | |
| URL |