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Aled Evans

@aledevans.bsky.social
54 followers 64 following 2 posts

Postdoc at the University of Southampton. I research fluid-rock interactions: critical metals, carbon mineralisation, and hydrogen generation.

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Aled Evans @aledevans.bsky.social · 22/11/2024
🧪⚒️ 🚨 New Paper Alert 🚨 It turns out ocean crustal veins are dynamic features rather than passively filled fractures. They record the changing balance between ocean plate cooling, ocean chemistry, and the age of ocean crust. #ScientificOceanDrilling www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Elemental mapping image of a calcium carbonate vein showing multiple events of precipitation and fracturing. Histogram Plot showing increasing vein width distributions and strain, but approximately constant vein density with crustal age. 

Ocean crustal veins are wider with increasing crustal age, but the number of veins remains approximately constant.  Plot of ocean heat flow data with crustal age showing that the termination of the global heat flow anomaly occurs up to 80 million years in the Atlantic and Pacific. 
Also, plot of seismic velocities showing a sudden increase within 8 million years of crustal formation. Increase in velocities due to filling of ocean crustal fractures by precipitation of secondary minerals. Heat flow and seismic data disagree about the duration of chemical exchange in ocean crust. Our results reconcile this long-standing discrepancy. Ocean plate cooling model showing the change in  cumulative temperature with crustal age. Also a plot of modelled strain, observed strain from drill cores, and atmospheric CO2. 
Also, plot showing discrepancy between the model and observations broadly fits the changing trend of atmospheric CO2 over the last 180 million years.
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