『Abstract
We have studied rivers from 3 volcanic tropical Islands (Guadeloupe
and Martinique in Lesser Antilles and Reunion) in order to evaluate
chemical weathering rates. These islands are constituted of very
porous pyroclastic deposits, andesitic or basaltic lava flows,
allowing significant water infiltration. From hydrological budgets,
we estimate that infiltration represents 10% in Guadeloupe and
40% in Martinique. Element fluxes transported by subsurface water
to the ocean have been quantified by coupling the hydrological
budget with the chemical composition of the sampled subsurface
waters. This is the first estimate of chemical weathering rates
from volcanic islands, which takes into account the high temperature
weathering contribution to the chemical weathering rates. Subsurface
waters are impacted by high-temperature water-rock interactions
and present therefore higher concentrations (4 to 100 times) of
major and trace elements compare to surface waters, representing
thus respectively 90%, 60% and 75% of the total (surface+subsurface)
weathering dissolved flux to the ocean for Martinique, Guadeloupe
and Reunion. This shows the importance of these fluxes, which
until now were not estimated in the basalt weathering geochemical
budgets. Chemical weathering rates from subsurface water are 2
to 5 time higher than the rates from surface waters. The total
average chemical rates calculated are 290 t/km2/yr
in Guadeloupe, 1080 t/km2/yr in Martinique and 270
t/km2/yr in Reunion(eの頭に´). These
values are among the highest worldwide.
Extrapolating this budget to the surface of all volcanic islands
world-wide, we estimate that these could contribute between 23%
and 31% of the global flux of dissolved load transported to the
oceans by major rivers draining silicate rocks whereas their surface
area represent only 9% of the silicate rock total surface area.
Keywords: Infiltration; Subsurface waters; basalt-andesite weathering;
volcanic islands』
1. Introduction
2. Geological and general hydrogeological setting
2.1. Lessser Antilles
2.1.1. Martinique
2.1.2. Guadeloupe
2.2. Reunion
2.3. Climate and hydrogeological setting
3. Sampling and measurements
4. Results
4.1. Major elements
4.2. Sr isotopic compositions
5. Discussion
5.1. The hydrological budget
5.2. Determination of weathering end-members by Sr chemistry
5.3. Surface and subsurface weathering fluxes
5.4. Re-estimation of the weathering rates
5.5. Re-evaluation of the impact of volcanic island (surface
and subsurface) chemical weathering to the global worldwide fluxes
6. Summary and conclusions
Acknowledgments
References