Champagne On Ocean Floor

These bubbles coming out of a hydrothermal vent area in the Pacific Ocean are not made of gas, but instead are mostly liquid carbon dioxide.  This is only the second time this phenomenon has been observed in the ocean.

The floating liquid droplets were discovered in April 2004 on a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration expedition.  Scientists, using the remotely-operated vehicle ROPOS, were exploring some small vents more than a mile below sea level, near an underwater volcano in the northern Mariana Arc.

Besides a hot, gas-rich fluid shooting out of the vents, bubbles were seen - some of them sticking to ROPOS, like clumps of grapes, but not fusing together to form larger bubbles.  Researchers suspected that the substance was liquid carbon dioxide, and recent analysis has confirmed that the droplets were indeed composed of about 90 percent carbon dioxide.

The area, labeled the Champagne site, is of interest to researchers who want to know the effects that elevated levels of dissolved carbon dioxide might have on marine organisms.  It is believed that the oceans soak up a large fraction of the carbon dioxide emitted by the burning of fossil fuels.

The findings were presented last month at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.

-- Michael Schirber

Credit: NOAA