The Ocean's Hot Plumbing
Hydrothermal vents are fissures on the seabed where geothermally heated water discharges. The fluid is mostly seawater plus some magmatic water. Ambient deep ocean water sits at 2 °C.
What the video says
Hydrothermal vents are fissures on the seabed where geothermally heated water discharges. The fluid is mostly seawater plus some magmatic water.
Ambient deep ocean water sits at 2 °C. Vent fluid emerges up to 464 °C.
Godzilla towered on the Pacific deep seafloor.
Some vents build cylindrical chimneys from dissolved minerals. Black smokers emit dark clouds rich in sulfur-bearing minerals.
In 1979, scientists discovered black smokers using the submersible ALVIN.
White smokers release lighter minerals containing barium, calcium, and silicon. These lower-temperature plumes sit further away.
Chemosynthetic bacteria form the base here. Vents support giant tube worms, clams, limpets, and shrimp.
Researchers hypothesize hydrothermal vents helped start abiogenesis. Conditions at these sites can synthesize molecules important to life.