Seafloor Snowblower

Scientists diving in the submersible Alvin in 1991 found themselves in something that looked like a snowstorm on the bottom of the sea. They had arrived soon after a seafloor volcanic eruption in which hydrothermal vents spewed huge volumes of white bacterial matter into the ocean at 9°50’N on the East Pacific Rise at a depth of 2,500 meters (8,250 feet). Rachel Haymon (UC Santa Barbara) and Dan Fornari (WHOI) were chief scientists on the expedition that made the first direct observation of these so-called “snowblower” vents and offered initial clues to a “deep biosphere” with potentially large populations of microorganisms living within the ocean crust at mid-ocean ridges.
(Photo by R. Haymon, D. Fornari, and the Alvin Group, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)