Deepest undersea volcanic vent

Photo released by the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton, England, Monday April 12, 2010, shows a cloud of smoky water billowing from the top of a tower of metal ore at a volcanic vent five kilometres (more than three miles) beneath the surface of the Caribbean. Photo: AP

It is said that humans know more about the heavens than about what lies underneath the oceans. Two-thirds of our planet is covered by oceans. They are full of wonders involving different types of life from the very bottom to the top. As recently as on April 6, 2010, a team of British scientists from the University of Southampton's School of Ocean and Earth Sciences (SOES) and National Oceanography Centre (NOC) has discovered the world's deepest undersea volcanic vent. They did it with the aid of two deep-diving vehicles, Autosub6000 and HyBIS, which were remotely controlled from the Royal Research Ship "James Coo." The 3.1 miles (5000 metres) long volcanic vent was found deep in the Cayman Trough, located between Jamaica and the Caribbean Islands. Previously, the deepest undersea volcanic vent, also known as the Black smoker, was the Ashadze vent field in the mid-Atlantic Ridge at a depth of 4040 metres. This recent undersea finding has been greeted by a great deal of interest by the oceanographers and marine biologists all around the world.
According to Dr. Jon Copley, a marine biologist himself at the SOES and the leader of the overall research programme, "Seeing the world's deepest black-smoker vents looming out of the darkness was awe-inspiring". During the undersea expedition, the scientists found slender spires made of copper and iron ores on the seafloor of Cayman Trench, erupting water hot enough to melt lead! In the very own words of Dr. Bramley Murton, a Geologist and the pilot of submersible HyBIS, exploring the area was "like wandering across the surface of another world". It is important to note that Black smokers, first discovered as early as 1977, are subject to a great deal of fascination by scientists because the steaming water that gushes from them nourishes lush colonies of deep-sea creatures (sometimes in the absence of light and oxygen) which not only forces scientists to rewrite the rules of biology but also provides a great deal of clues on the possibilities of life on other planets.
Now, what is a Black smoker in actuality? To put it simply, it is a type of hydrothermal vent or underwater hot spring which is formed in fields hundreds of metres wide when superheated water (400°C or 752°F) from below Earth's crust stream through the ocean floor. This blazing hot mineral-rich fluid, when expelled into the icy cold water of the deep ocean, creates a smoke-like effect leaving behind towering chimneys of metal ore, some of which are as high as two-storied buildings. The Black smokers are also subject to a spectacular pressure, 500 times stronger than the Earth's atmosphere, which essentially keeps the water from boiling. Even though the environment of these volcanic vents are indeed brutal, however, to the astonishment of the scientists, they host thriving colonies of exotic sea-creatures like blind shrimp, giant white crabs to large red-lipped tubeworms who apparently lack a digestive system!
This recent discovery of the deepest Black smoker in Cayman Trough is speculated to be the hottest to be ever found, since the vent area is nearly half a mile deeper than any previously discovered. Scientists are hoping that the study of the vent would usher a better understanding on the fundamental geological and geochemical processes that shape our world, namely the physics of "supercritical fluids"(liquids that are so hot that they act like gasses). Dr. Doug Connelly, a Geochemist of NOC and Principal Scientist of the expedition, explains "We hope our discovery will yield new insights into Bio-Geo-Chemically important elements in one of the most extreme naturally occurring environments on our planet". The expedition, expected to continue until 20th April, is part of a research project funded by the UK Natural Environment Research Council to study the world's deepest undersea volcanoes.

The contributor is a freelance science writer