WEBVTT

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There’s only 200,about 250 places on Earth in the deep ocean where humans have observed deep-sea vents.

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So it’s kind of like finding that needle in a haystack to find these small habitats on the deep-sea floor.

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On land,sunlight is the basis of all life; whereas in the deep sea, there is no sunlight.

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And hydrothermal vents are extremely unique in that, instead of having sunlight,

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they have this fluid full of chemicals which is what animals rely on, what that food web starts with.

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So like on land, the plants are primary producers;in the deep sea, instead, you get bacteria being the primary producers.

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There are some animals at vents which can live only at vents because they rely solely on that bacteria or that fluid.

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And then there are others which can kind of just drift in and pick off animals as they want.

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These fire our imagination about exploration, because they’re things that are found in the deep sea,

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they’ve got weird creatures on them, they look strange,

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and I think that people can sort of relate to the alien nature of the vents that you see at the bottom.

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But they also play a role in chemical cycling in the ocean.

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They play a role in the biology and biogeography of the ocean.

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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.

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Most of the fluids surrounding the structure will only be about 20 degrees Centigrade at the most.

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It’ll be between five and 20, for instance.

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And that’s what’s so interesting about the biology, what actually lives on these vents,

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is that they live at an extreme of temperature;they live at an extreme of chemicals;

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they really uniquely suited to only live at hydrothermal vents.

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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.

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Most of them live in sort of bath-warm water. Right.

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How long do the vents last? That’s a great question.

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And I think it’s one that we don’t often know the answer to.

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Some of them appear to be extremely long lived.

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And some of them last, you know, for minutes to hours.

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We really don’t know.

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If they don’t have a chance to armor themselves, it’s going to be easy to knock them down.

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If they’re in a very, very tectonically active environment, they’re probably less likely to survive.

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When a hydrothermal vent,chimney,or field becomes extinct and there’s no more fluid emanating from the structure,

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it means that many of the vent-endemic animals, animals which are only able to live at hydrothermal vents, they will die.

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And many may move to other vents.

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But, life isn’t over for that hydrothermal vent yet.

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Instead, that chimney, which is quite a large structure extending up into the water column,

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that will become prime real estate for a totally different set of fauna.