The last dive: exploration of an hydrothermal site
The last dive of the cruise took place on August 18. We decided to return to the area where the previous dive had found traces of hydrothermal activity. The site was found on the flank…
Climbing along a fault plane: discovery of a former hydrothermal site
The eighth Nautile dive occurred on August 16th. It has been devoted to the exploration of a massif elongated along an E-W direction, located slightly to the South of the Romanche fracture zone, close to…
An elongated volcanic field south of the main core complex
The 23rd Nautile dive of the SMARTIES cruise, on August 15th, 2019, aimed at investigating the volcanic field located south of the main core complex and west of the last MAR oblique ridge axis. The…
Axial volcanic ridge
The 16th Nautile dive of the SMARTIES cruise, on August 8, 2019, was aimed at the investigation of the relationship between tectonics and volcanics at the southern tip of an axial volcanic ridge located between…
The transition zone
This 21st dive was carried out on August 13, 2019, in a transition zone located between, an expansion zone perpendicular to the direction of the ridge, to the South, an oblique expansion zone to the…
The volcanic zone: seamounts
The aim of the dive was to explore some possible young seamounts located in an intermediate position between those explored during dive 13 (south of the main core complex) and some from the central oblique…
The volcanic zone
On the 10 of August, dive 1975 crossed a portion of the northern mid ocean ridge segment of the Mid Atlantic Ridge before abutting against the Romanche Fracture zone. Target structures to observe during the…
Volcanic lava flows
The dive was taking place on the side of the detachment faults we have been studying for the past days. Based on observations collected by the multibeam of the Pourquoi pas?, one of the graben…
Exploring the “core complex”: a fault at the core of the structure
For the 14th dive, the objective is to complete the observations that have been made on the structure of the oceanic core-complex during the previous dives: Dive 09 on the front of the core-complex, dive…
At the top of an oceanic core complex
The 12th dive of the Nautile took place on August 3rd, 2019. The objective was to continue the exploration of the large massif located at the intersection of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and the Romanche Fault.…
A fault on the top of an oceanic core complex
This dive is the first one on the main core complex structure. It is located on a steep fault (direction N30), which is crosscutting the interior of the structure. During this dive we managed to…
Synthesis of the results for the first part of the cruise
The first dives of the SMARTIES cruise had two objectives: 1. Conduct a geological survey (observations and sampling) of the Romanche transform fault in its easternmost portion; 2. Study the reliefs observed on the southern…