A Major Helium-3 Source at 15°S on the East Pacific Rise

An extensive plume of water enriched with helium-3 has been discovered in the deep Pacific Ocean at latitude 15 degrees S on the East Pacific Rise. In the core of the plume, at a depth of 2500 meters over the ridge crest, the helium-3/helium-4 ratio is 50 percent higher than the ratio in atmospheric helium, indicating a strong injection of mantle or primordial helium at the spreading center axis through local hydrothermal systems. The helium-3 plume is completely absent east of the rise, but it can be traced over 2000 kilometers to the west above a newly observed physical feature: a density discontinuity here caled the "ridge-crest front." The injected plume provides a unique deep-sea tracer with an asymmetric distribution which shows that the deep circulation across the rise is from east to west. The striking intensity and lateral extent of this helium-3 anomaly, compared to observations at known oceanic hydrohrmal sites, suggest that the largest hydrothermal fields in the ocean are yet to be discovered and that they will be found near 15 degrees S on the East Pacific Rise.