The role of black smokers in the Cu mass balance of the oceanic crust

Seafloor hydrothermal systems play an important role in the metal budgets of the oceans via hydrothermal plumes, accumulation of seafloor massive sulfide deposits, and alteration of the oceanic crust. These processes have resulted in large-scale metal anomalies on the Pacific plate, most notably at the Nazca–Pacific plate boundary. This plate-scale variability in metal deposition has important implications for the fluxes of metals to subduction zones and possibly the metal endowment of arc-related mineral deposits. However, the relative contributions to the metal budget from black smokers, deep-sea sediments, Mn nodules and altered crust remain unclear. The Cu contents of more than 10,000 samples of seafloor massive sulfide deposits, subseafloor stockwork mineralization, nodules and sediments reveal that most of the Cu metal originally mobilized by high-temperature hydrothermal convection at the ridges is retained in the crust as subseafloor alteration and mineralization, never reaching the seafloor. This metal accounts for at least 80% of the labile Cu that may be released to subduction fluids driven off a down-going slab. Copper deposited in deep-sea sediments, which account for 17% of the total budget, is derived in part from plume fallout associated with ridge-crest hydrothermal activity but also from pelagic deposition of marine organic matter enriched in Cu metal. Massive sulfide deposits, nodules and manganiferous crusts account for only ∼3% of the Cu metal of the subducting slab.