"
The hydrothermal vents at the ocean bottom were miles from any
location scientists could have imagined. One massive seafloor vent was
18 stories tall. All were creamy white and gray, suggesting a very
different composition than the hydrothermal vent systems that have been
studied si..."
The hydrothermal vents at the ocean bottom were miles from any
location scientists could have imagined. One massive seafloor vent was
18 stories tall. All were creamy white and gray, suggesting a very
different composition than the hydrothermal vent systems that have been
studied since the 1970s.
Scientists who named the spot Lost City knew they were looking at
something never seen before when the field was serendipitously
discovered in Dec. 2000, during a National Science Foundation (NSF)
expedition to the mid-Atlantic.
This week in the journal Science, researchers publish for the
first time findings about the gases produced at Lost City and the
organisms that live off of them.
Both are so different from
so-called black-smoker hydrothermal vents they may provide a whole new
avenue for studying the earliest life on Earth as well as looking for
signs of life on other planets, according to Deborah Kelley, a
University of Washington oceanographer and lead author of the report.
“This finding is an exciting example of NSF’s commitment to
discovery through basic research,” said Bilal Haq, director of NSF’s
marine geology and geophysics program, which funded the research.
“Lost
City shows us that geological, chemical and biological processes are
intimately linked at a primal environment, and lends strong support to
the need for interdisciplinary approaches to scientific research.”
The field was named Lost City in part because it sits on a seafloor
mountain named the Atlantis Massif, and because researchers were using
the WoodsHole Oceanographic Institution's vessel Atlantis when the
area was discovered. The field is about 300 feet by 1,000 feet, has 30
large vents, some 30 to 200 feet tall, and contains hundreds of smaller
structures. Steep cliffs behind the field are shingled with carbonate.
Microorganisms at Lost City live in highly alkaline fluids that are
nearly as caustic as drain opener, Kelley says, whereas organisms
inhabiting black-smoker vents are well adjusted to acidic fluids..
Further, she says, Lost City microbes appear to live off bountiful
methane and hydrogen. But absent is carbon dioxide, the key energy
source for life at black-smoker vents. And there is little hydrogen
sulfide and only very low traces of metals, a common staple for many of
the microbes at the other kind of vents.
According to researchers, a circulation pattern known as
serpentinization creates a chemical reaction betweenseawate......
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Sea floor records ancient Earth
Did comets cause killer cold spell ?
Prehistoric jungles laughed at global warming
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Ancient tsunami 'hit New York'
Animal Language
Massive ice chunks break up in Antarctica
Global warming could change Earths tilt
