Volcanic vent could hold clues to life

BRITAIN VOLCANIC VENT

A volcanic vent 5km below the surface of the Caribbean could hold the secret to how life formed on Earth / AP
Source: AP





SCIENTISTS using a remote-controlled submarine have discovered the world’s deepest known volcanic vent and say the super-heated waters inside could contain undiscovered marine species and perhaps even clues to the origin of life on earth.


Experts aboard the RRS James Cook say they have found the underwater volcanic vent more than 5km beneath the surface of the Caribbean in an area known as the Cayman Trough, a deep-sea canyon that served as the setting for James Cameron’s underwater thriller, The Abyss.

Geologist Bramley Murton, the submersible’s pilot, says exploring the area is “like wandering across the surface of another world”, complete with spires of multicoloured mineral deposits and thick collections of fluorescent blue microorganisms thriving in the slightly cooler waters around the chimneys.

The scenes “were like nothing I had ever seen before”, Mr Murton said.

Volcanic vents are areas where sea water seaps into small cracks that penetrate deep into the earth’s crust – some reaching down more than two kilometres.

Temperatures there can reach 400 degrees celsius, heating the water to the point where it can melt lead.

The blazing hot mineral-rich water is expelled into the icy cold of the deep ocean, creating a smoke-like effect and leaving behind towering chimneys of metal ore, some two storeys tall. The spectacular pressure – 500 times stronger than the earth’s atmosphere – keeps the water from boiling.

The environment may appear brutal: the intense heat and pressure combines with toxic metals to form a highly acidic undersea cocktail. But vents host lush colonies of exotic animals such as hairy worms, blind shrimp and giant white crabs.

“Although those are lethally hostile conditions for surface-dwellers like us, life exists at all depths in the oceans, right down to the bottom of the deepest trenches,” said marine biologist Jon Copley in an email interview from the James Cook. “We’re still figuring out how.”

Because the vent area is nearly half a mile deeper than any other discovery, scientists speculate it could be the hottest ever found. Study of the vent could yield insights into the history of the ocean, the physics of so-called supercritical fluids – liquids so hot they act like gasses – and the chemical makeup of the deep ocean.

Most tantalising is the prospect that the expedition, led by geochemist Douglas Connelly of Britain’s National Oceanography Centre, could also reveal a variety of new life forms specially adapted to the Trough’s punishing environment.

“The deep sea is full of surprises,” a statement posted to the expedition’s website said. “We may find species unlike any seen before. The Cayman Trough may be like (Arthur) Conan Doyle’s Lost World,” a novel that imagines an area populated by prehistoric monsters hidden deep in the Amazonian rainforest.

The Cayman Trough vent was discovered on April 6. Mr Copley said the team used a cube-shaped submersible linked to the ship by 5km of cable.

The find illustrated how little was known about what lurks at the bottom of the sea, a sentiment backed by Tolstoy, Mr Copley said.

“We know more about the surface of the Moon and Mars than we do about our own planet because two-thirds of our planet is covered by ocean, making it very hard to explore,” he said.

“We’ve only seen a tiny fraction of the deep sea floor so there are undoubtedly many more vents and other amazing things to discover.”
 

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