资源环境科技发展态势分析平台

Acoustic Doppler current profiler and conductivity-temperature-depth data acquired in Yellowstone Lake reveal the presence of a buoyant plume above the "Deep Hole" hydrothermal system, located southeast of Stevenson Island. Distributed venting in the similar to 200 x 200-m hydrothermal field creates a plume with vertical velocities of similar to 10 cm/s in the mid-water column. Salinity profiles indicate that during the period of strong summer stratification the plume rises to a neutral buoyancy horizon at similar to 45-m depth, corresponding to a similar to 70-m rise height, where it generates an anomaly of similar to 5% (-0.0014 psu) relative to background lake water. We simulate the plume with a numerical model and find that a heat flux of 28 MW reproduces the salinity and vertical velocity observations, corresponding to a mass flux of 1.4 x 10(3) kg/s. When observational uncertainties are considered, the heat flux could range between 20 to 50 MW.