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Minerals Report - International Seabed Authority

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Figure 6: Distributions of hydrothermal activity detected along the central Mid-Atlantic<br />

Ridge near the Azores Triple Junction (35°N-40°N) superimposed upon the pseudobathymetry<br />

derived from satellite altimetry by Sandwell & Smith [29].<br />

One of these sites has been studied in detail - the Rainbow<br />

hydrothermal field, which lists among the few largest massive sulphide<br />

deposits yet located in the North Atlantic Ocean (Fouquet et al., 1997).<br />

Intriguingly, this deposit is also located in an entirely new geological setting.<br />

It does not occur where freshest lava out-pouring have occurred, at the centre<br />

of a ridge segment but, instead, is found at the intersection between a segment<br />

of ridge axis and the offset or fracture zone that connects that segment of the<br />

INTERNATIONAL SEABED AUTHORITY 384

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