Hydrographic changes during 20 years in the brine-filled basins of the Red Sea

Many of the deep basins filled by hot brines in the Red Sea have not been investigated since their discovery in the early 1970s. Twenty years later, in September 1992, six of these deeps were revisited. The temperature and salinity of the Suakin, Port Sudan, Chain B, and Nereus deeps ranged from 23.25 to 44.60°C and from 144 to 270‰. These values were approximately the same in 1972, indicating that the budget of heat and salt was quite balanced. We measured strong gradients of properties in the transition zone between brines and overlying seawater. The contribution of salinity to the density gradient was more than one order of magnitude higher than the opposite contribution of temperature across the seawater–brine interface. Therefore the interface was extemely stable, and the transfer of properties across it was considered to be controlled mostly by molecular diffusion. We calculate that the diffusional transport of salt from the brines to seawater cannot affect significantly the salinity of the brines over a 20 year period, which agrees with the observations. The brine pools can persist for centuries with no salt input. Therefore, the persisence of brines does not correspond to a steady balance between diffusional loss and continuous input of hydrothermal solutions. Deeps that experience only episodical hydrothermal brine supplies may persist for a long time with salt inherited from past inputs. The theoretical loss of heat by diffusion from the brine to seawater was higher than the observed decrease in temperature of the brine pool during the 20 year period of observation. We calculated that the heat flux out of the pools into the overlying seawater was compensated by a heat flux into the pools of about 250–600 mW/m2. This range of values corresponds to bottom heat flow values that have been reported earlier for the axial zone of the Red Sea. In contrast to the other brine pools, the temperature and salinity of the Valdivia Deep brine increased by 4.1°C and 10‰, respectively, between 1972 and 1992, which is explained by present-day hydrothermal brine discharge.