Electromagnetic Imaging of Crustal Magma Chambers

In February/March 2004 we carried out a combined magnetotelluric (MT) and controlled source electromagnetic (CSEM) study of the mid-ocean ridge in the Pacific Ocean at 9°--10° North latitude. A 40-kilometer line of 22 seafloor electromagnetic recorders at 9°30' collected data from 27 kilometers of deep-towed CSEM transmission at 2~Hz, with a source dipole moment of 22~kAm. In order to obtain a first-order image of the information contained in the CSEM data we computed an apparent resistivity psuedosection based on signal amplitudes. This generates a spectacular image of a 10-kilometer wide, 20~Ømegam magma chamber embedded in a 500~Ømegam crust, along with pockets of melt or brine offset to the east of the ridge. We used the pseudosection to guide trial-and-error forward modeling using a newly developed 2D unstructured finite element code which allows seafloor bathymetry to be accurately meshed. The more rigorous modeling results in a good fit to the data from a much narrower 20~Ømegam `mush' zone only 2.5~km wide, capped by a 600-m thick 5~Ømegam melt lens. Unlike the pseudosection, the forward model requires a conductive (5~Ømegam) tent which extends from the melt lens to within about 100~m of the seafloor, probably corresponding to a zone of hydrothermal circulation. This is in contrast to earlier results from the slow-spreading, deeper magma chamber at the Valu Fa Ridge in the Lau Basin, where a large, asymmetric conductivity anomaly in the upper crust suggests that hydrothermal fluids extend 10~km west of the ridge axis.