Nodules of Hydrothermal Birnessite in the Caldera of a Young Seamount

Abstract

Manganese nodules made of radiating rods of well crystallized birnessite were sampled at 8° 481.2'N, 103° 53.8'W, 1875 m below sea level by a dredge that also collected hyaloclastite and basaltic talus. The nodule field is on the floor of a caldera within a young tholeiitic seamount and was discovered and photographed during a deep-two survey. It is interpreted as a brecciated hydrothermal deposit, crystallized from an amorphous manganese oxide precipitate that formed when seawater-based hydrothermal fluids mixed with oxidized seawater. The nodules and surrounding igneous rocks have subsequently been encrusted with hydrogenous ferromanganese oxides.