Vents are most often found along the mid-ocean ridge and rift system that extends through the oceans at sea floor spreading centers. Vents form
when volcanic activity adds new material to diverging plates and sea water gets into cracks in the plates
.
How do hydrothermal vent communities function?
Hydrothermal vents support unique ecosystems and their communities of organisms in the deep ocean. They
help regulate ocean chemistry and circulation
. They also provide a laboratory in which scientists can study changes to the ocean and how life on Earth could have begun.
How long are vent communities able to exist for?
Some vent fields may remain active for
10,000 years
, but individual vents are much shorter-lived. Chemosynthetic bacteria obtain energy from the chemical bonds of hydrogen sulfide.
What provides the basis of life in vent communities?
These
microbes
are the foundation for life in hydrothermal vent ecosystems. Instead of using light energy to turn carbon dioxide into sugar like plants do, they harvest chemical energy from the minerals and chemical compounds that spew from the vents—a process known as chemosynthesis .
How do hydrothermal vent communities form?
Hydrothermal vents occur at both
diverging
and converging plate boundaries. Heat is released as magma rises and cracks the ocean floor and overlying sediments. Seawater drains into the fractures and becomes superheated, dissolving minerals and concentrating sulfur and other compounds.
Can anything survive in around a hydrothermal vent?
Most bacteria and archaea
cannot survive
in the superheated hydrothermal fluids of the chimneys or “black smokers.” But hydrothermal microorganisms are able to thrive just outside the hottest waters, in the temperature gradients that form between the hot venting fluid and cold seawater.
What are two types of hydrothermal vents?
Hydrothermal vents are often divided into two types: ‘
black smokers' and ‘white smokers'
.
What do hydrothermal vents release?
Hydrothermal vents form at locations where seawater meets magma. A venting black smoker emits
jets of particle-laden fluids
. The particles are predominantly very fine-grained sulfide minerals formed when the hot hydrothermal fluids mix with near-freezing seawater.
What are the 6 biogeographic provinces of hydrothermal vent communities?
Hydrothermal vent biogeographic provinces include the
Northeast Pacific (Gorda, Juan de Fuca, and Explorer Ridge systems); Eastern Pacific (East Pacific Rise
What chemicals do hydrothermal vents release?
Copper, zinc, iron, hydrogen sulfide
, and hydrogen dissolve in the fluids. Hot fluids carrying dissolved metals rise up through crust. The hydrothermal fluids mix with cold, oxygen-rich seawater. Metals and sulfur combine to form black metal-sulfide minerals.
What is the ultimate food source in the vent community?
Hot, mineral-rich fluids supply nutrient chemicals. Microbes, some of which eat these chemicals, form the base of the food chain for a diverse community of organisms. These vents are the only places on Earth where the ultimate source of energy for life is not sunlight but
the inorganic Earth itself
.
What do Vulcanoctopus Hydrothermalis eat?
Hydrothermal vent octopuses of Vulcanoctopus hydrothermalis, feed on
bathypelagic amphipods
Which three metals are found around hydrothermal vents?
Within the hydrothermal vents are seafloor massive sulfides (SMS), whereby the vents create sulfide deposits containing valuable metals such as
silver, gold, manganese, cobalt, and zinc
.
What bacteria live in deep-sea vents?
Major types of bacteria that live near these vents are
mesophilic sulfur bacteria
. These bacteria are able to achieve high biomass densities due to their unique physiological adaptations.
What is the relationship between thermocline and hydrothermal vents?
Thermocline of the tropical ocean. The two areas of greatest temperature gradient in the oceans are the transition zone between the surface waters and the deep waters, the thermocline, and the
transition between the deep-sea floor and the hot water flows at the hydrothermal vents
.
Do hydrothermal vents have oxygen?
Colonies of Riftia are anchored on the rocks where hydrothermal fluid (12–15°C) issues out onto the sea floor. At the base of their tubes, hydrothermal fluid is enriched in H
2
S and CO
2
, but
is devoid of oxygen
. The respiratory plume is extended into the ambient (2°C), oxygen-enriched bottom water.
