hydrothermal vents

1. Hydrothermal Vents
Sangamesh V Mathad
MSc – I
Dept of Marine Science
Goa University

2. Objectives
• To understand hydrothermal vents, its unique
ecology, distribution and also about threats its
being faced

3. A hydrothermal vent is a fissure in a planet's surface from which
geothermally heated water issues.
Common land types include hot springs and geysers.
These commonly found near volcanically active places, areas where
tectonic plates are moving.
Some of the submarine hydrothermal vents hosts complex
communities fueled by the chemicals dissolved in the vent fluids.
Hydrothermal Vents

4. Structure

5. Hydrothermal vent Ecology
• The water from the hydrothermal vent is rich in dissolved minerals and
supports a large population. Bacteria use sulfur compounds,
particularly hydrogen sulfide, to produce organic material through the
process of chemosynthesis.
• Larger organisms, such as snails, shrimp, crabs, tube
worms, fish (especially eelpout, cutthroat
eel, ophidiiforms and Symphurus thermophilus),
and octopi (notably Vulcanoctopus hydrothermalis), form a food chain of
predator and prey relationships above the primary consumers. The main
families of organisms found around seafloor vents
are annelids, pogonophorans, gastropods, and crustaceans.

6. Distribution

7. Black Smokers Theory
• Günter Wächtershäuser proposed the iron-sulfur world theory and
suggested that life might have originated at hydrothermal vents.
• It has been proposed that amino acid synthesis could have occurred deep
in the Earth's crust and that these amino acids were subsequently shot up
along with hydrothermal fluids into cooler waters, where lower
temperatures and the presence of clay minerals would have fostered the
formation of peptides and protocells.
• A major limitation to this hypothesis is the lack of stability of organic
molecules at high temperatures, but some have suggested that life would
have originated outside of the zones of highest temperature

8. Deep sea mining
• Many hydrothermal vents are rich in cobalt, gold, copper,
and rare earth metals essential for electronic component.
• Nautilus Minerals - newly constructed mining ship in
the territorial waters of Papua New Guinea. Nautilus Minerals,
in partnership with Placer Dome (now part of Barrick Gold),
succeeded in 2006 in returning over 10 metric tons of mined
SMS to the surface using modified drum cutters mounted on
an ROV.
• Neptune Minerals is at an earlier stage. Near Kermadec
Islands in the South Pacific Ocean 800–1,000 km (500–620 mi)
northeast of New Zealand's North Island.

9. Case study: First Hydrothermal Vent
Communities from the Indian Ocean Discovered
Jun Hashimoto, Suguru Ohta, Toshitaka Gamo , Hitoshi Chiba , Toshiyuki
Yamaguchi , Shinji Tsuchida , Takamoto Okudaira , Hajime Watabe ,
Toshiro Yamanaka and Mitsuko Kitazawa
ABSTRACT—Thriving chemosynthetic communities were located for the first
time in the Indian Ocean between 2420 and 2450 m, on a volcanic knoll at the
eastern crest of an axial valley, approximately 22 km north of the Rodriguez
Triple Junction. The communities were distributed in a 40m by 80m field around
the knoll. At least seven active vent sites, including black smoker complexes that
were emitting superheated water at 360°C, were observed at the field. The
faunal composition of the Indian Ocean hydrothermal vent communities had
links to both Pacific and Atlantic vent assemblages. This discovery supports the
hypothesis that there is significant communication between vent faunas in the
Pacific and Atlantic Oceans via active ridges in the Indian Ocean.

10. Measuring the
temperature of an
active black smoker by
the ROV Kaiko at the
Kairei Field. The
temperature of
superheated water was
360°C at maximum.

12. Results and discussions
• On August 25, 2000, the Kaiko successfully located the first active
hydrothermal site in the Indian Ocean.
• Twenty species of vent-specific organisms were collected within and near
the Kairei Field, and additional six species were observed.

13. Communities were dominated by swarms of densely
packed shrimp belonging to the genus Rimicaris and crowded
beds of actinians belonging to the family Actinostolidae . This is similar in
appearance to the Atlantic vent sites ,Rimicaris had been previously
reported only from the Atlantic Ocean. However, the iphitimidid
polychaete, Ophryotrocha, the provannid gastropod Alviniconcha, the
bythograeid crab Austinograea, and the scalepellid cirriped
Neolepas, known previously only from the Pacific Ocean
,were found and captured at the Kairei Field.
Shells, but no live individuals, of the vesicomyid clam
were also observed close to the Kairei Field. The clams
and other vent organisms observed including actinostolid
actinians, Branchipolynoe polynoids, Lepetodrilus limpets,
Phymorhynchus gastropods, Bathymodiolus mussels,
Chorocaris shrimp and Munidopsis galatheids were reported
from both Atlantic and Pacific hydrothermal vent sites
.

15. Refrences
• First Hydrothermal Vent Communities from the Indian Ocean Discovered,
Author(s): Jun Hashimoto, Suguru Ohta, Toshitaka Gamo, Hitoshi Chiba, Toshiyuki
Yamaguchi, Shinji Tsuchida, Takamoto Okudaira, Hajime Watabe, Toshiro
Yamanaka, and Mitsuko Kitazawa. Published By: Zoological Society of Japan (2001)
• An obligately photosynthetic bacterial anaerobe from a deep-sea hydrothermal
vent J. Thomas Beatty, Jörg Overmann, Michael T. Lince, Ann K. Manske, Andrew S.
Lang, Robert E. Blankenship,Cindy L. Van Dover, Tracey A. Martinson, and F. Gerald
Plumley Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2005 Jun 28. Published online
• Oceanography by Savinder Singh, page 234