Deep-sea Vector Magnetic Anomalies over the Bayonnaise Knoll Caldera (Izu-Ogasawara Arc) (Invited)

The Bayonnaise Knoll caldera is located on the eastern margin of the backarc rift zone of the Izu-Ogasawara island arc. The caldera rim is ~3 km in diameter and 100-200 m high from the caldera floor 840-920 m deep. A large active hydrothermal field associated with sulfide deposit, called the Hakurei site, has been found at the foot of the southeastern caldera wall. We conducted deep-sea magnetic measurements using autonomous underwater vehicles to map ~75 % of an area 3 km by 4 km in the caldera. The magnetic vector field data were collected at 40-150 m altitude along the survey lines spaced 80-200 m apart. We improved the conventional correction method applied for removing the effect of vehicle magnetization, which greatly enhanced the precision of the resulting vector anomalies and allowed us to use the vector anomaly instead of the total intensity anomaly for inversion analysis. The magnetization distribution obtained using the vector anomaly was significantly different from the one obtained using the total intensity anomaly, especially in areas where the survey tracks were widely spaced. The aliasing effect appears in areas of sparse data distribution, and the magnetic field is more correctly calculated from the vector anomaly than the total intensity anomaly. The magnetization distribution in the caldera has two major features: a ~1.5-km wide belt of high magnetization, trending NNW-SSE through the caldera, and a clear low magnetization zone, ~300 m x ~500 m wide, extending over the Hakurei site. The high magnetization belt is considered to reflect basaltic volcanism associated with the backarc rifting that occurred after the formation of the Bayonnaise Knoll. The low magnetization zone is interpreted as the alteration zone resulting from the hydrothermal activity. Several zones of localized high magnetization are recognized within the high magnetization belt, some of them in the caldera wall adjacent to the low magnetization zone of the Hakurei site. We speculate that intensive magma intrusion occurred beneath the caldera wall and has provided the heat to generate hydrothermal fluid, which has been spouting out through the caldera wall faults. The surface expression of the vent field extends beyond the alteration zone inferred from the magnetization distribution, spreading upwards in the caldera wall. High-resolution topography around the Hakurei site indicates that the hydrothermal vents are generally distributed over a landform of slope failure. These observations would imply that hydrothermal fluid rising up in the up-flow zone moves laterally as well when it comes near the seafloor, probably along numerous fractures and fissures in the caldera wall. The distribution of pre-existing faults and fractures may rather control the fluid flow pathways in the shallow part and condition the surface extent of the vent field.