Fault motions and cracking events induced by thermal contraction may open new pathways for circulating fluids to enter hot rock, thus temporarily increasing hydrothermal fluxes and changing the chemistry. It is extremely difficult to assemble the full array of equipment necessary to monitor all aspects of these interrelated systems at the same time. Stand-alone experiments are limited by practical considerations to periods that are significantly shorter than the time scales of the volcanic and tectonic cycles responsible for seafloor spreading. A cable-supported natural laboratory would provide the infrastructure necessary to concentrate multidisciplinary observations at a few key sites on appropriate time scales. It would allow scientists to observe events in their entirety, adapting their experiments in real time to respond to changes in the system.
Oceanic plates occupy two thirds of Earth's surface.
Consequently intraplate processes are globally important. For example, much of Earth's heat is lost through cooling over entire lithospheric plates. Stresses within them provide critical clues about the various forces that drive and resist plate motion. Hydrothermal circulation on mid-ocean ridge flanks is responsible for the exchange of large amounts of heat and chemical constituents between the oceans and the oceanic crust, and may fuel thermophilic microbes that take advantage of the chemical potentials in this dynamic regime. Many of the questions that remain unanswered about intraplate processes and structure can be addressed well, and in some cases only, through observatory studies.