Observations of hydrotectonic stress/strain events at a basement high at the Nicoya outer rise

There is substantial and growing evidence from heat flow and coring investigations that the oceanic plate off Costa Rica is highly hydrologically active and that this activity is responsible for one of the most anomalously cold thermal environments encountered in the oceanic environment. Recent work by Fisher, et al. has identified limited regions above certain topographic highs with extremely high heat flows. Pore water profiles from cores above these thinly sedimented basement highs suggest upward flow on the order of ~1 cm/yr. These highs may be the principal regions of out-flow from the basement in this region and, thus, can potentially be used to constrain the general level of hydrologic activity. The nine Chemical and Aqueous Transport (CAT) meters we deployed at one of the highest heatflow sites provide a temporal record of both in-flow and out-flow of aqueous fluids at rates as low as 0.1 mm/yr. Our objective was to provide a direct measurement of long term flow rates to address the following questions: (1) What are the characteristic fluid fluxes at basement highs of the low heat flow region of the northern Costa Rican incoming plate, and (2) is this flow temporally variable? The results of the instrument deployments agree quite closely in general with the coring results in that the background rates are on the order of 1 cm/yr or less. There is, however, considerable detail in the temporal records which suggest small scale tectonic stress transients causing temporary increases in flow rate. While this is certainly not an area of major tectonic activity, the site is located at the top of the outer rise where one would expect bending-related stress and fault reactivation to occur. The CAT meters are capable of detecting minute strain events in the underlying sediments and therefore may be detecting small localized strain events. Two periods of increased flow lasting a few weeks each occur during the 5 month deployment and are indicated on all of the instruments. A few indicate downflow while the others show upflow. This sort of response would be expected during a stress event causing regions of compression and dilation. These results suggest that ridge flank basement highs may be good sites to monitor stress/strain events as well as basement hydrology.