Hydrothermal Vents
Life Without Guts
Piece and accompanying video highlights the Alvin sub and the discovery of hydrothermal vent life
The Hot Spot Below Yellowstone Park
WHOI scientist Rob Sohn brought an arsenal of deep-sea technology normally used to explore the seafloor to the bottom of Yellowstone Lake, where a team of researchers investigated the subsurface geothermal activity hidden from view in the national park.
Read MorePanel to Discuss Deep-Sea Mining at AAAS Meeting
Home to an immense diversity of marine life, the deep ocean also contains valuable minerals with metals such as nickel, copper, cobalt, manganese, zinc, and gold, and rare-earth elements used in electronic technology like smart phones and medical imaging machines. As demand for these resources increases and supplies on land decrease, commercial mining operators are looking to the deep ocean as the next frontier for mining.
Read MoreNew Report Details How NASA Could Land on Europa
quotes Chris German and mentions WHOI
Woods Hole Researchers Studying Hydrothermal Vents On The Floor Of Yellowstone Lake
mentions Chris Linder and WHOI
Study shows temperatures rising in Yellowstone Lake vents
mentions Rob Sohn and WHOI
New Findings Reported From Yellowstone Lake Robot
quotes Rob Sohn and mentions WHOI
Temperatures from Yellowstone Lake vents hit new high
quotes Rob Sohn and mentions WHOI
Column: Researching the ocean’s value
quotes Stace Beaulieu
The 40,000-Mile Volcano
quotes Dan Fornari and mentions WHOI
Ocean Robots: Hydrothermal Vents
Since they were discovered in the East Pacific in 1977, hydrothermal vents have captivated scientists and the public alike. New…
Read MoreScientists Find Evidence of Ancient Microbial Life in Sub-Seafloor Mantle Rocks
quotes Frieder Klein and mentions WHOI
Ancient life existed in Earth’s mantle rocks
quotes Frieder Klein and mentions WHOI
Fossils Show How Ancient Seafloor Gave Rise to Life
quotes Frieder Klein and mentions WHOI
Barnacles Explain Life at the Extreme
quotes Santiago Herrera
Carbon Dioxide Pools Discovered in Aegean Sea
The waters off Greece’s Santorini are the site of newly discovered opalescent pools forming at 250 meters depth. The interconnected series of meandering, iridescent white pools contain high concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) and may hold answers to questions related to deepsea carbon storage as well as provide a means of monitoring the volcano for future eruptions.
Read MoreMaking Organic Molecules in Hydrothermal Vents in the Absence of Life
quotes Jill McDermott, Jeff Seewald, and Chris German
Mission Studies Organic Molecules in Hydrothermal Vents
quotes Jill McDermott
Making Organic Molecules in Hydrothermal Vents in the Absence of Life
In 2009, scientists from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution embarked on a NASA-funded mission to the Mid-Cayman Rise in the Caribbean, in search of a type of deep-sea hot-spring or hydrothermal vent that they believed held clues to the search for life on other planets. They were looking for a site with a venting process that produces a lot of hydrogen because of the potential it holds for the chemical, or abiotic, creation of organic molecules like methane – possible precursors to the prebiotic compounds from which life on Earth emerged.
For more than a decade, the scientific community has postulated that in such an environment, methane and other organic compounds could be spontaneously produced by chemical reactions between hydrogen from the vent fluid and carbon dioxide (CO2). The theory made perfect sense, but showing that it happened in nature was challenging.
Now we know why: an analysis of the vent fluid chemistry proves that for some organic compounds, it doesn’t happen that way.
New research by geochemists at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, published June 8 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is the first to show that methane formation does not occur during the relatively quick fluid circulation process, despite extraordinarily high hydrogen contents in the waters. While the methane in the Von Damm vent system they studied was produced through chemical reactions (abiotically), it was produced on geologic time scales deep beneath the seafloor and independent of the venting process. Their research further reveals that another organic abiotic compound is formed during the vent circulation process at adjacent lower temperature, higher pH vents, but reaction rates are too slow to completely reduce the carbon all the way to methane.
Read MoreMaking Organic Molecules in Hydrothermal Vents in the Absence of Life
ran WHOI news release featuring Jill McDermott and Chris German
also picked up by Phys.Org
Deep Sea Wonders
quotes Tim SHank
Study Finds Deep Ocean is Source of Dissolved Iron in Central Pacific
A new study led by scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) points to the deep ocean as a major source of dissolved iron in the central Pacific Ocean. This finding highlights the vital role ocean mixing plays in determining whether deep sources of iron reach the surface-dwelling life that need it to survive.
Read MoreBringing a Lab to the Seafloor
Scientists can’t really know if new oceanographic instruments will really work until they try them in actual conditions in the real ocean. In this case, the rubber hit the road at the bottom of the sea.
Read MoreBig Questions About Tiny Bacteria
It’s 3 a.m., and Jesse McNichol is struggling to stay awake. Since midafternoon, he’s been in his lab, tending to…
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