Traditional geothermal systems have long been deployed in Japan, Europe and Australia, but its potential is limited to those spots on the planet
where hydrothermal vents are already present and reachable.
Life on Earth likely began in hydrothermal systems (environments where hot water reacts with rocks), and there is abundant evidence for many locations
where hydrothermal environments exists on Mars at the time when life might have originated in similar environments on Earth.
Although less than 1 % of the sea floor
where hydrothermal vents are suspected has been investigated, hundreds of hydrothermal vent fields have been identified around the globe in the past couple decades.
Not exact matches
The economic Battle Mountain — Cortez — Eureka Trend gold deposits were deposited as mineralized
hydrothermal sedimentary - host replacement horizons and breccia zones along major fault structural zones
where alteration and anomalous gold - silver - arsenic - antimony - thallium mineralization are present.
Yet we know that life on Earth can thrive in extreme conditions: from the Antarctic (
where temperatures can drop to almost -90 °C) to
hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor (
where temperatures can exceed 460 °C).
We started finding the same organisms that people were reporting from deep - sea
hydrothermal vents [
where hot, mineral - laden fluid flows through volcanic rock into the ocean from deep within the Earth].
The name Lokiarchaeota is derived from the hostile environment close to
where it was found, Loki's Castle, a
hydrothermal vent system located on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between Greenland and Norway at a depth of 2,352 meters.
Image of a
hydrothermal vent field along the Arctic Mid-Ocean Ridge, close to
where «Loki» was found in marine sediments.
Plunging into the ocean off the west coast of Vancouver Island, the more than 800 kilometers of fiber optic cables that connect the research stations stretch across the continental shelf, plummet down the slope and across an abyssal plain, and skirt
hydrothermal vents near a mid-ocean ridge
where the Earth gives birth to new ocean crust.
The second spot was Axial Seamount, an active underwater volcano, along with its associated
hydrothermal vents,
where the team could study the transfer of minerals from beneath the seafloor into the water and access hardy microbes that thrive in the vent fluids, which can reach 250 degrees Fahrenheit.
«You can create
hydrothermal systems like those on early Earth
where life may have formed.»
Hydrothermal sites, in particular, are increasingly recognized as important places
where the exchange between the surface and deep parts of Earth's biosphere are possible.
Forty years ago when
hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor were first discovered, scientists were amazed to find life
where no sunlight penetrated, feeding off of sulfur gases.
«People think that
hydrothermal vents are possibly
where life began.
But
where does the energy for the
hydrothermal systems that drive the transport of matter come from?
Hydrothermal vents,
where heated, mineral - laden seawater spews from cracks in the ocean crust, are home to various diverse organisms.
Alkaline
hydrothermal vents are found on the seafloor near
where tectonic plates meet.
One question that has long and intensively been discussed in research is:
Where and how deep does seawater penetrate into the seafloor to take up heat and minerals before it leaves the ocean floor at
hydrothermal vents?
Now, new research offers a potential solution: Longer RNA chains could have hidden out in porous rocks near volcanic sites such as
hydrothermal ocean vents,
where unique temperature conditions might have helped complex organisms evolve.
Geochemist Nicholas Tosca of Harvard University and his colleagues calculated the salinity of long - gone waters from the composition of the salts left behind both at Meridiani Planum,
where the Opportunity rover found the remains of salty groundwater, and at Gusev crater,
where Spirit found volcano - related
hydrothermal deposits.
A hotspot on the ocean floor could become a living laboratory
where marine scientists can study underwater volcanoes and the weird life that clusters around the plumes of superheated water spurting from
hydrothermal vents.
The findings support the idea that the last universal common ancestor (LUCA) lurked in
hydrothermal vents
where hot water rich in hydrogen, carbon dioxide and minerals emerged from the sea floor.
In the deep gold mines of South Africa, and under the sea, at
hydrothermal vents
where breaks in the fissure of Earth's surface that release geothermally heated waters — hydrogen - rich fluids host complex microbial communities that are nurtured by the chemicals dissolved in the fluids.
Rich ecosystems exist on our own planet's seafloor,
where volcanic rifts create
hydrothermal vents.
Shannon Johnson uses robots to explore deep - sea
hydrothermal vents,
where science - fiction - worthy animals live in hot, acidic water and munch on bacteria that can survive in space.
«It is evocative of the deep - sea
hydrothermal environments on Earth, similar to environments
where life might be found on other worlds — life that doesn't need a nice atmosphere or temperate surface, but just rocks, heat and water.»
' Undersea
hydrothermal conditions on Mars may have existed about 3.7 billion years ago; undersea
hydrothermal conditions on Earth at about that same time are a strong candidate for
where and when life on Earth began.
More recently, however, microbial life found around
hydrothermal vent ecosystems (i.e., the «Lost City» found in the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, which is cooler than those found at «black smokers») indicate that Carbon - 13 is not selected against Carbon - 12 in hydrogen - rich environments
where microbial life is starved of carbon, essentially in the form of carbon dioxide (Alexander S. Bradley, Scientific American, December 2009: pp. 62 - 67).
«We report for the first time, a unique behavior
where the deep - sea skate, Bathyraja spinosissima, appears to be actively using the elevated temperature of a
hydrothermal vent environment to naturally «incubate» developing egg - cases,» the researchers wrote in the journal Scientific Reports on Feb. 8.
The team said they were likely remnants of early bacteria that lived in underwater,
hydrothermal vents,
where some of Earth's earliest life forms are thought to have been harbored.
hydrothermal vent Openings at the bottom of the ocean or a lake
where hot water emerges from deep inside the earth.
Image of a
hydrothermal vent field along the Arctic Mid-Ocean Ridge, close to
where «Loki,» a member of the Asgard group, was found in marine sediments.
The most widely developed type of geothermal power plant (known as
hydrothermal plants) are located near geologic «hot spots»
where hot molten rock is close to the earth's crust and produces hot water.
These ideas changed when oceanographers explored
hydrothermal vents, openings in the ocean floor
where extremely hot, mineral - rich water erupts from the crust.
Hydrothermal vents are located several miles below the surface, on the ocean floor,
where the surrounding water is at or near freezing, it is absolutely dark and the pressure is high.
On Earth, molecular hydrogen, or H2, enters ocean water
where hot
hydrothermal vents emerge from the ocean floor.
Before whale falls were well documented, it was thought that this type of biodiversity was only seen at cold - seep sites and
hydrothermal vents,
where hydrogen sulphide and methane naturally escape through the sediment.
Scientists are in the early stages of building a fiber optic network on the seafloor for observing, in real time, deep - sea
hydrothermal vents — places
where super-heated water and minerals spew from Earth's crust offering clues about how life on the planet may have began.
The most widely developed type of geothermal power plant (known as
hydrothermal plants) are located near geologic «hot spots»
where hot molten rock is close to the earth's crust and produces hot water.
In a recent expedition near Antartica, researchers from Oxford discovered dozens of remarkable new species thriving in one of the most extreme environments on the planet, alongside deep - sea
hydrothermal vents
where temperatures can reach over 750F.
I doubt if the 45,000 miles of active spreading centers,
hydrothermal vents, and underwater volcanoes are being evaluated adequately (probably only the Dept. of Defense knows
where most of the shallower volcanoes are).