BEIJING, July 25 (Xinhuanet) -- Vents of scalding liquid have been found rising out of the seafloor at temperatures more than twice the boiling point of water. The vents arefarther north than any others previously identified inside the Arctic circle, report scientists.
The hydrothermal vents, also called black smokers, are located on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between Greenland and Norway. They are more than 120 miles farther north than other known vents.
Remotely operated vehicles photographed the scene as part of an expedition led by Rolf Pedersen, a geologist at the University of Bergen in Norway.
Black smokers have been found in many deep-sea locations, including on the Juan de Fuca Ridge off Washington and British Columbia. Despite the lack of sunlight to power life in the abyss, the vents often support unique communities of creatures that live off their warmth and chemicals. Some scientists think the vents would have been great locales for the origin of life on Earth.
Dissolved sulfide minerals that solidify when vent water hits the icy cold of the deep sea have, over the years, accumulated around the newfound vent field in what is one of the most massive such deposits ever found on the seafloor, said expedition member Marvin Lilley, a University of Washington oceanographer.
The vents are created where the seafloor spreads apart. The farther north one goes along the ridge, the slower the spreading is.
"Given the massive sulfide deposit, the vent field must surely have been active for many thousands of years," he said. "We hadn't expected a lot of active venting on ultra-slow spreading ridges,"
The area around the vents was alive with microorganisms and animals. Preliminary observations suggest that the ecosystem around these Arctic vents is diverse and appears to be unique, unlike the vent communities observed elsewhere, according to a statement from the University of Bergen.
(Agencies)
