SFB 574

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The Collaborative Research Center (German: Sonderforschungsbereich) 574 (SFB 574) - Volatiles and Fluids in Subduction Zones: Climate Feedback and Trigger Mechanisms for Natural Disasters - was founded in 2001. It is hosted as the Christian-Albrechts-Universität and the Leibniz Institut for Marine Sciences, both located in Kiel, Germany.

1 Research Program Summary
2 Current
3 Links
4 Sources

[edit] Research Program Summary

SFB 574 focuses on the flow of volatiles and fluids into and out of subduction zones and so addresses a major influence on the long- and short-term development of the Earth's climate, the geo chemical evolution of the hydrosphere and atmosphere, and the causes of natural disasters. The volatile input into subduction zones comes from the sediments, the alteration products of the oceanic crust and perhaps in particular the serpentinization of the oceanic mantle. The subducting slab is progressively dehydrated by compaction, diagenesis and metamorphic reactions, which control depth dependent fluid release. Fluid output in the fore-arc region (where it may lead to both the formation and the destabilisation of gas hydrates and hence may cause a time-dependent modulation of carbon release) occurs at the deformation front and through mud diapirs or mud volcanoes. Fluid output at the volcanic arc occurs through magmatic devolatilization. SFB 574 thus pursues an integrated investigation of the fluxes and effects of fluids from the incoming plate through the fore-arc and the volcanic arc back into the hydrosphere and atmosphere. The processes involved in the throughput of volatiles are addressed under three overarching themes:

Theme A: Subduction zone processes and structure^[1]
Theme B: Fore-arc volatile turnover and fluid flow^[2]
Theme C: Slab-arc-atmosphere transfer^[3]

They cover the entire subduction zone system as follows by: Determining the structure of both the incoming plate and the overriding plate and quantify their volatile reservoirs (Theme A), quantifying fluid flow and determining pathways through the fore-arc region, whereby diagenetic and biogenic reactions selectively sequester, mobilize or otherwise transform the content of volatile reservoirs (Theme B), and establishing the migration of fluids from the deep subducting slab through the arc into the atmosphere, whereby type and style of the subducting plate are considered as well their control on quantity, make-up and mechanism of return transport (Theme C).

[edit] Current

A new Junior Research Group was established, that uses marine magnetotelluric methods for imaging the fluid distribution in the Central American subduction system using combined marine electromagnetic methods and joint inversion (Thema N)^[4].