HydrothermalThis scene was discovered on the ocean floor during the Okeanos Explorer’s expedition to
HydrothermalThis scene was discovered on the ocean floor during the Okeanos Explorer’s expedition to the Marianas Basin in the Pacific Ocean. The towers are the remnants of hydrothermal vents called black smokers. When water circulates through hot rocks in newly-formed ocean crust, it dissolves soluble elements, including iron and sulfur. When those hot fluids exit the crust at the ocean floor, the water cools and those elements will almost instantly precipitate solids. A pile of these solids formed around a single vent is a black smoker.The center of this image is fuzzy and hard to see through because there is an active vent with superheated water pouring from it. Older columns on the right have other minerals, such as calcium-bearing minerals or silicates, precipitated on the outer part of the column. If you look closely, some of the white spots on all these columns are actually shrimp and crabs supported by the hydrothermal vent. Chemosynthetic organisms can react the elements coming out of the ground with oxygen in the water as an energy source, feeding themselves and supporting entire ecosystems.-JBBImage credit: NOAAhttps://flic.kr/p/HSNsid -- source link
#okeanos#ocean#hydrothermal#black smoker#geology#marianas#chemistry#chemosynthetic#water#sulfur