Flows of Antarctic bottom water through fractures in the southern part of the North Mid-Atlantic Ridge

We study the flows of bottom waters of the Antarctic origin in deep fracture zones of the southern part of the North Mid-Atlantic Ridge. In the autumn of 2014, an expedition onboard the RV Akademik Sergey Vavilov carried out measurements of current velocities and thermohaline properties of bottom water in several quasi-zonal fractures in the southern part of the Northern Mid-Atlantic Ridge, which connect the deep basins of the West and East Atlantic, the Vema Fracture Zone (FZ) (10A degrees 50' N) and a group of sub-equatorial fractures: Doldrums (8A degrees 15' N), Vernadsky (7A degrees 40' N), and a nameless fracture at 7A degrees 30' N. The estimates of bottom water (theta < 2.0A degrees C) transport through this group based on measurements from 2014 are approximately 0.28 Sv (1 Sv = 10(6) m(3)/s), which is close to 25% of the transport estimate through the Vema FZ (1.20 Sv) obtained in the same expedition. The coldest bottom water temperatures among the investigated fractures were recorded in the Vema FZ.