Our amazing planet.

Deep-Sea Vent Life Not Living Fossils

News
By published
deep-sea-hydrothermal-vents-chimneys-101007-02
Chimney-like structures spew hot fluids of up to 300 degrees Celsius that contain large amounts of methane and hydrogen sulfide. (Image credit: MARUM)

Deep in the ocean, bizarre creatures colonize deep-sea hydrothermal vents, where boiling water laden with minerals builds otherworldly towers.

The animals and bacteria thrive on chemicals and live without sunlight, an ecosystem separate from life on land. When they were first discovered in the 1970s, scientists suggested the hydrothermal vent systems might be living fossils, untouched by surface events for hundreds of millions of years.

"We can't assume that these things are protected from what's happening at the surface of the planet," Bob Vrijenhoek, a biologist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, said in a statement. "They are every bit as susceptible as the surface organisms."

Vrijenhoek suggests that extreme global events could have shifted deep ocean chemistry enough to disrupt the chemical reactions bacteria rely on to convert vent chemicals into food. [Video: Seafloor Chimneys Teem With Life]

New species of common vent animals, including worms, mussels and snails,  also appeared after a sudden global warming 55 million years ago, Vrijenhoek said. The study relied on a few fossil animals, identifying the genetic differences between related species.

The findings were published online in the December 2012 issue of the journal Deep Sea Research Part II: Topical Studies in Oceanography.

Email Becky Oskin or follow her @beckyoskin. Follow us @OAPlanet, Facebook or Google +. Original article on LiveScience's OurAmazingPlanet.

Becky Oskin
Becky Oskin
Contributing Writer
Becky Oskin covers Earth science, climate change and space, as well as general science topics. Becky was a science reporter at Live Science and The Pasadena Star-News; she has freelanced for New Scientist and the American Institute of Physics. She earned a master's degree in geology from Caltech, a bachelor's degree from Washington State University, and a graduate certificate in science writing from the University of California, Santa Cruz.