MARGINS Postdoctoral Fellowship: The Role of Sediment Diagenesis and Dewatering on Fluid and Heat Flow, Costa Rica Margin

University Of Missouri-Columbia, Columbia MO

Investigators

Abstract

This award will support a MARGINS post-doctoral fellowship to examine how ubducted sediments affect fluid pressure, fluid flow patterns and frictional properties within subduction zones. This project will address two fundamental questions about the role of sediments in subduction zones: 1) how are diagenetic fluid sources partitioned between opal and smectite dewatering on the Costa Rica margin (and therefore how deep in the subduction zone is most of the fluid produced), and 2) how do along-strike variations in heat flow and sediment composition affect the patterns of diagenetic fluid sources, fluid pressures, fluid flow, and possibly the updip limit of seismicity within the subduction zone?