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The deep ocean has been of interest to scientists for a long
time, but some of the big problems with observing the deep
ocean have been about how to do it safely.
There's really high pressure, low temperatures almost down
to the freezing point, and there's no light. This makes exploring
there extremely dangerous. Before scientists would use things
like cameras, SONAR, and small submersibles to explore, but
more recently this has expended to include manned submersibles like ALVIN,
remotely operated vehicles, and even autonomous robots.
It was thought that no life could exist on the ocean floor
because, theoretically, the sun is the basis of all food chains
and without sun life could not exist. But in 1977 off
the Galapagos Islands scientists discovered a community
of organisms living at the very bottom of the ocean floor
in the benthic zone at what's called a hydrothermal vent.
The picture in the upper right explains a little bit about what
a hydrothermal vent is.
Hydrothermal vents are exit points on the ocean floor for
water that has seeped into the crust and then been heated
by magma. The creatures here are what we would call
'extremophile' because they live in an extreme envrionment
of extremely high temperature and complete darkness.
Out of these hydrothermal vents are extremely toxic chemicals
called Hydrogen Sulfides that most of us on the surface of
the Earth would be completely poisoned by, but these
guys turn it into food through the process of 'chemosynthesis.'
The animals that are going to live here are things like clams,
mussels, snails, and shrimp. These are hard to see, but the
picture I have in the bottom right is covered by organisms
called 'tube worms.'
Cold seeps are another type of vent that releases lower
temperature fluids. These fluids often contain natural gas
or other gases so cold seeps tend to be mined as a source
for this kind of energy. Cold seeps are also venting more
slowly and for longer periods of time than hydrothermal vents
and the kinds of organisms living at seeps are also similar to those living at the vents.
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