Chemical, physical and biological processes in hydrothermal plumes control the flux of elements from hydrothermal vents to the global oceans. The timescales of these processes range from less than a second, as the hydrothermal fluid mixes with seawater at the seafloor, to decades, as the plume disperses over thousands of kilometres. Integrating hydrothermal geochemistry throughout the lifetime of the plume reveals some well-constrained processes, along with many surprises. For instance, contrary to the idea that metals are removed from the hydrothermal plume via oxidation, a survey of recent datasets reveals that oxidation of iron and manganese does not consistently result in their removal from the plume, and that manganese may be lost from the water column more rapidly than iron. These observations suggest that our understanding of element transport in hydrothermal plumes is incomplete, partly due to the change in removal processes as the plume disperses from less than 1 km from the vent to more than 4,000 km. We suggest that characterizing the plume on the basis of regions that retain some reduced components versus those that are fully oxidized, in addition to buoyancy, will illuminate the nature of the dominant processes and allow a more complete understanding of the ultimate fate of hydrothermally derived metals.

热液羽流中的化学，物理和生物过程控制着从热液喷口到全球海洋的元素通量。这些过程的时间范围从不到一秒（因为热液在海底与海水混合）到几十年（当羽流散布了数千公里）。在羽流的整个生命周期中整合热液地球化学揭示了一些受约束的过程，以及许多惊喜。例如，与通过氧化从热液羽流中去除金属的想法相反，对最近数据集的调查显示，铁和锰的氧化并不能始终如一地导致从羽流中去除金属，锰可能会从水中丢失柱比铁更快。这些观察结果表明，我们对热液羽流中元素运移的理解是不完整的，部分原因是随着羽流从距通风口的不足1 km到超过4,000 km的扩散过程，去除过程的变化。我们建议，基于浮力的基础上，除了保留浮力以外，还可以保留一些还原成分与被完全氧化的成分，从而表征羽状流，这将阐明主要过程的性质，并使您能够更全面地了解水热衍生金属的最终命运。