Comment on 'Formation of Thetis Deep metal-rich sediments in the absence of brines, Red Sea' by Pierret et al. (2010)

摘要

The recent paper by Pierret et al. (2010) interestingly suggests that metal-rich hydrothermal sediments in Thetis Deep have been deposited in the absence of brines, in contrast to many of the other Red Sea deeps. We however were concerned by the claim that "... brine layers never occurred in the Thetis Deep." This claim was based on radiocarbon dates of samples from one piston core (334PC) reported by Scholten et al. (1991). The oldest C14 date reported by Scholten et al. was 18,000 y. Our study of the geology of Thetis Deep has only recently been published (Mitchell et al., 2010) and unfortunately would not have been available to Pierret et al.