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Hydrothermal Vents Discovered Off Antartica
ScienceDaily (Mar. 4, 2010) — Scientists at Columbia’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory have found evidence of hydrothermal vents on the seafloor near Antarctica, formerly a blank spot on the map for researchers wanting to learn more about seafloor formation and the bizarre life forms drawn to these extreme environments.
Hydrothermal vents spew volcanically heated seawater from the planet’s underwater mountain ranges — the vast mid-ocean ridge system, where lava erupts and new crust forms. Chemicals dissolved in those vents influence ocean chemistry and sustain a complex web of organisms, much as sunlight does on land. In recent decades more than 220 vents have been discovered worldwide, but so far no one has looked for them in the rough and frigid waters off Antarctica.
From her lab in Palisades, N.Y., geochemist Gisela Winckler recently took up the search. By analyzing thousands of oceanographic measurements, she and her Lamont colleagues pinpointed six spots on the remote Pacific Antarctic Ridge, about 2,000 miles from New Zealand, the closest inhabited country, and 1,000 miles from the west coast of Antarctica, where they think vents are likely to be found. The sites are described in a paper published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
Read more at Science Daily: Hydrothermal Vents Discovered Off Antarctica
Journal Reference:
Winckler, G., R. Newton, P. Schlosser, and T. J. Crone. Mantle helium reveals Southern Ocean hydrothermal venting. Geophysical Research Letters, 2010; 37 (5): L05601 DOI: 10.1029/2009GL042093