Volcanoes are hot, but they’re even hot underwater. We’re talking about center-of-the-Earth hot here. There are areas around these deep-sea volcanoes that are home to several organisms that like a toasty environment.
Ever heard of a hydrothermal vent? Yes, it’s as hot as it sounds.
Underwater volcanoes produce hot springs at spreading ridges and where plate boundaries meet. Where the cold seawater trickles down through cracks or fissures in the ocean’s crust, it’s then heated by the hot magma and comes back out forming a hydrothermal vent. The seawater rushing out of that vent can reach temperatures over 700 degrees Fahrenheit.
These vents were first discovered in 1977 when scientists exploring the oceanic spreading ridge near the Galapagos Islands. To do this, they needed ships with Remotely Operated Vehicles. Unlike the traditional method of trawling the ocean floor, the ROVs allowed exploration along the uneven ridges where trawling wasn’t an option. Not only did they discover the deep sea “hot springs,” but to their surprise they saw life thriving around them.
According to the National Ocean Service, the hot fluid shooting out of the vent is cooled quickly by the colder water surrounding it. This is the area where life was found thriving at temperatures around 68 degrees Fahrenheit.
So what was living there you ask? Yeti crabs and scaly-foot gastropods, which have only been observed living in the areas around hydrothermal vents. Mussels and tube worms formed large colonies here too. Sounds kind of alien-like doesn’t it? Wait, there’s more.
Three years after finding these creatures in this thermal oasis, scientists actually found something living on the sides of the vent’s chimneys. What could possibly live in an environment where temperatures can shoot up to 176 degrees Fahrenheit? The Pompeii worm. This worm is one of the most heat-resistant multicellular creatures on Earth. Keep in mind most animals can’t live or function in temperatures that exceed 104 degrees Fahrenheit.
How were they surviving in this extreme climate with no sunlight or big food source? Chemosynthesis. Very similar to photosynthesis which is how our plants make food to survive, chemosynthesis is carried out by bacteria using chemicals drawn from the piping hot vent fluid. The chemical energy is used to convert carbon dioxide into sugar without ever needing sunlight.
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