There’s only 200,about 250 places on Earth in the deep ocean where humans have observed deep-sea vents.
So it’s kind of like finding that needle in a haystack to find these small habitats on the deep-sea floor.
On land,sunlight is the basis of all life; whereas in the deep sea, there is no sunlight.
And hydrothermal vents are extremely unique in that, instead of having sunlight,
they have this fluid full of chemicals which is what animals rely on, what that food web starts with.
So like on land, the plants are primary producers;in the deep sea, instead, you get bacteria being the primary producers.
There are some animals at vents which can live only at vents because they rely solely on that bacteria or that fluid.
And then there are others which can kind of just drift in and pick off animals as they want.
These fire our imagination about exploration, because they’re things that are found in the deep sea,
they’ve got weird creatures on them, they look strange,
and I think that people can sort of relate to the alien nature of the vents that you see at the bottom.
But they also play a role in chemical cycling in the ocean.
They play a role in the biology and biogeography of the ocean.
And it’s very important for us to be able to know where these oases of the deep are and how they change over time.
Most of the fluids surrounding the structure will only be about 20 degrees Centigrade at the most.
It’ll be between five and 20, for instance.
And that’s what’s so interesting about the biology, what actually lives on these vents,
is that they live at an extreme of temperature;they live at an extreme of chemicals;
they really uniquely suited to only live at hydrothermal vents.
But I think that there’s this common misconception that all of these animals live in extremely high temperatures, where that’s not the case.
Most of them live in sort of bath-warm water. Right.
How long do the vents last? That’s a great question.
And I think it’s one that we don’t often know the answer to.
Some of them appear to be extremely long lived.
And some of them last, you know, for minutes to hours.
We really don’t know.
If they don’t have a chance to armor themselves, it’s going to be easy to knock them down.
If they’re in a very, very tectonically active environment, they’re probably less likely to survive.
When a hydrothermal vent,chimney,or field becomes extinct and there’s no more fluid emanating from the structure,
it means that many of the vent-endemic animals, animals which are only able to live at hydrothermal vents, they will die.
And many may move to other vents.
But, life isn’t over for that hydrothermal vent yet.
Instead, that chimney, which is quite a large structure extending up into the water column,
that will become prime real estate for a totally different set of fauna.