While the methane in the Von Damm
vent system they studied was produced through chemical reactions (abiotically), it was produced on geologic time scales deep beneath the seafloor and independent of the venting process.
In a field
study, Diane Adams, a marine biologist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, and her colleagues measured the currents near the seafloor along the East Pacific Rise, a submarine ridge south - southwest of Acapulco, Mexico, that sports many hydrothermal
vent systems.