An incredible new wonderland has been discovered, hidden deep beneath the waves of the Arctic ocean.
Hydrothermal vents extend along the Knipovich Ridge, more than 3,000 meters (9,842 feet) below the coast of Svalbard, Norway. This underwater mountain range was previously unknown. Pretty mediocre.
Instead, like underfloor heating, heat seeps in from volcanic activity beneath the ocean floor, creating a haven of warmth and chemical reactions where life can gather and thrive.
The field is 1 kilometre long and 200 metres wide. Giants in Norse Mythology A giant organism that lives beneath a mountain. In this case, that giant organism is an internal process of the Earth that has been released through a crack in the ocean floor.
“Water seeps into the ocean floor and is heated by the magma. The superheated water then flows back down through cracks and fissures to the ocean floor.” explain Gerhard Bormann, a marine geologist at the University of Bremen in Germany.
“As the seawater rises, it becomes rich in minerals and materials dissolved from the rocks of the ocean crust. This water often seeps back down to the seafloor through tubular smokestacks called black smokers, where metal-rich minerals precipitate.”
Hydrothermal vents are some of the most fascinating underwater environments. They are usually found very deep below the ocean’s surface, so deep that sunlight never reaches the vast amount of water above them.
At this depth, the environment is always dark, freezing cold, and surrounded by overwhelming pressure.
While this environment isn’t exactly favorable for life, hydrothermal vents act as odd oases: the minerals that seep into the water and dissolve there provide the basis for a food chain that relies on chemosynthesis, a method of using chemical reactions rather than sunlight for energy, rather than the photosynthesis that most life near the surface employs.
These environments make for a more dynamic and thriving deep sea floor than expected, offering clues about how life might emerge in a world very different from our own.
Discovering hydrothermal fields is important both for protecting Earth’s biodiversity and learning more about its functions, and for understanding how the Earth itself functions and changes over time.
Götul Plain lies on the boundary between two of Earth’s crustal plates, a so-called “slow spreading ridge”: the plates are moving away from each other very slowly, causing the crust to stretch and forming valleys and ridges.
While scientists have detected hydrothermal activity on nearly every ridge north of Iceland, the Knipovič Ridge remains a notable exception.
That was until 2022. Scientists had been witnessing signs of hydrothermal chemistry in the region, so they took a remotely operated submersible up to the ridge to see if they could find its source.
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They drove Malam Quest The submersible plunged more than two miles to the bottom, where it took photographs and collected water samples, and discovered vast areas of the seafloor containing both extinct and active hydrothermal vents, as well as glimmers of volcanic heat seeping into the water.
This is an exciting discovery, filling an important gap in the mystery of the distribution of hydrothermal fluids in the Norwegian-Greenland Sea.
“The Jötul hydrothermal field is the first to be discovered along the 500-kilometre ultra-slow-spreading Knipovič Ridge and is important as it represents a new link between the active hydrothermal system at Loki Castle, at the bend of the Måns Ridge and the Knipovič Ridge, and the Auroral hydrothermal field at the Gakkel Ridge.” The researchers write in their paper:.
“These systems are more than 1,000 kilometres apart, so the discovery of the Jötul hydrothermal field is important for understanding the distribution of chemosynthetic animal communities.”
Additionally, the new findings could help provide insight into ocean chemistry and how the waters that cover the Earth help in the cycling and distribution of materials such as carbon.
This study Scientific Reports.