Changing Earth: How Dead Zones Form Live Science - July 14, 2008
Found: The hottest water on Earth New Scientist - August 4, 2008
Secret to Towering Rogue Waves Revealed Live Science - August 4, 2008
Ocean mission delivers first maps BBC - July 31, 2008
Changing Earth: How Dead Zones Form Live Science - July 14, 2008
Rocks under the northern ocean are found to resemble ones far south PhysOrg - April 30, 2008
The western portion of the Gakkel Ridge has been found to contain a
geochemical signature until now known mainly from the Indian Ocean.
Scientists discover new ocean current PhysOrg - April 30, 2008
Australia: Undersea "Wind Farms" Tested National Geographic - May 2, 2008
Ocean Dead Zones Growing; May Be Linked to Warming National Geographic - May 2, 2008
Telegraph.co.uk - February 6, 2008
A lost city at the bottom of the ocean contains chemical traces that suggests it could have been the cradle of life on Earth. Some believe the right ingredients for life made their way from outer space. Darwin thought it emerged in a "warm little pond" and others have looked for answers on the sea floor. Now evidence to back the latter submarine idea has emerged from the "Lost City" which lies at a depth of 2,600 feet, where creamy white to grey spires, pinnacles and 18 storey chimneys teem with microscopic marine life, as a volcanic system on the Atlantic sea floor that gradually pushes America and Britain apart. The temperature and composition of fluids from a group of underwater hot springs there that are heated by the slow cooling of the underlying rocks, called a hydrothermal vent field, are similar to those predicted to have occurred during the early years of life on Earth.
Today, a team reports that hydrocarbons - the stuff of oil and gas and molecules critical to life - are routinely being generated by the simple chemical interaction of seawater with the rocks under the Lost City in the mid-Atlantic. Being able to produce building blocks of life makes these sites, which are found in the world's oceans, even stronger contenders as places where life might have originated on Earth, according to Dr Giora Proskurowski and Prof Deborah Kelley, two authors of a paper in the journal Science. Hydrocarbons, molecules with various combinations of hydrogen and carbon atoms, are key to cellular life. For instance, cell walls can be built from simple hydrocarbon chains and amino acids are short hydrocarbon chains hooked up with nitrogen, oxygen or sulphur atoms. "The generation of hydrocarbons was the very first step, otherwise Earth would have remained lifeless," says Dr Proskurowski.
An analysis has ruled out a living origin for the hydrocarbons, which are the stuff of oil and gas reserves which, in turn, formed from the remains of prehistoric marine plants and animals that sank to the sea bed. But in the case of the Lost City, the ultimate source of the hydrocarbons is non living. "The detection of these organic building blocks from a non-biological source is possible evidence in our quest to understand the origin of life on this planet and other solar bodies," Proskurowski says. Could this mean the world's reserves of oil and gas have been underestimated, chiming with an idea popularised by the scientist Thomas Gold that non living geological processes can make petroleum? "I'd speculate that petroleum accumulation at Lost City-type deep sea system is unlikely," says Proskurowski.
The Lost City hydrothermal vent field is about 2,300 miles east of Florida, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Microorganisms there thrive in alkaline vent fluids, some nearly as caustic as liquid drain cleaner. This contrasts to the previously studied black-smoker vents where organisms have adjusted to acidic water. Lost City microbes dine on methane and hydrogen instead of the carbon dioxide that is the key energy source for life at black-smoker vents.
The towering structures of the Lost City are nearly pure carbonate, the same material as limestone in caves. The structures drape the cliffs at Lost City and range from the size of tiny toadstools to the 18-story column, named Poseidon, that dwarfs most known black smoker vents by at least 100 feet.
The field was named Lost City in part because it is on top of a submerged mountain named Atlantis and was discovered by chance during an expedition on board the research vessel Atlantis.
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The subduction zones where oceanic plates sink beneath the continents
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Sea floor records ancient Earth BBC - March 26, 2007
A sliver of four-billion-year-old sea floor has offered a glimpse into the inner workings of an adolescent Earth. The baked and twisted rocks, now part of Greenland, show the earliest evidence of plate tectonics, colossal movements of the planet's outer shell. Until now, researchers were unable to say when the process, which explains how oceans and continents form, began. Plate tectonics is a geological theory used to explain the observed large-scale motions of the Earth's surface.
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Scientists probe 'hole in Earth' in the mid-Atlantic BBC - March 1, 2007
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Mission to Study Earth's Gaping 'Open Wound' Live Science - March 1, 2007
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Fossil gives clue to big chill BBC - April 21, 2006
The gateway between the Atlantic and Pacific at
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Pacific and Atlantic Oceans Merged Earlier Than Previously Believed Live Science - April 21, 2006
'Milky seas' detected from space BBC - September 30, 2005
Mariners over the centuries have reported surreal, nocturnal displays
of glowing sea surfaces stretching outwards to the horizon.
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The white minerals mark a tower's active region
December 14, 2000 - BBC
Vast towers of mineral deposits have been discovered in the middle of the Atlantic.
They are in a new type of hydrothermal vent field. The "spires" were formed from deposits laid down by mineral-rich hot waters gushing up through rocks on the ocean floor.
Researchers diving in the mini-sub Alvin were so astonished by the scale and beauty of the field they have dubbed it the Atlantic's "Lost City".
"We thought that we had seen the entire spectrum of hydrothermal activity on the seafloor, but this major discovery reminds us that the ocean still has much to reveal," said Margaret Leinen, of the United States National Science Foundation.
"These structures, which tower 55 m (180 ft) above the seafloor, are the largest hydrothermal chimneys of their kind ever observed," said Deborah Kelley, a University of Washington geologist who was also part of the expedition.
Cone-shaped pinnacles rise from a central spire
"It is really, really big and it looks different from the others we have studied," said Dr Paul Tyler, of the UK's Southampton Oceanography Centre.
But it was Duke University structural geologist Jeff Karson who probably caught best the mood of excitement created by the discovery when he said: "If this vent field was on land, it would be a national park."
The researchers say that the most surprising aspect of the new find is that the venting structures are composed of carbonate minerals and silica, unlike most other mid-ocean-ridge hot-spring deposits which are formed by iron and sulphur-based minerals.
Life support
Also, other vents in the Atlantic have a rich population of shrimps and bacteria but they appear to be absent in this field.
"I think they have to look very carefully before they conclude that it does not have a shrimp colony on it," said Dr Paul Tyler. "Sometimes they can be found where they can hold on to a region where they can feed from material in the vent flow itself."
The Lost City field was discovered unexpectedly while researchers were studying the geological and hydrothermal processes that built an unusually tall, 3,700-m (12,000-ft), underwater mountain. The region under investigation is 1,600 km (1,000 miles) south of the Azores.
In the area, rocks called serpentinised peridotites, and rocks crystallised in under-seafloor magma chambers, have been uplifted from beneath the seafloor along large faults.
Carbonate minerals seem to dominate the field
Donna Blackman, a geophysicist from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and chief scientist of the expedition, said: "The venting towers are very spectacular and, although they bring up a whole new set of questions, we will learn about the evolution of the mountain itself as we study the vents carefully in the future."
Scientists have seen hundreds of overlapping flanges on the chimneys that some say are reminiscent of hot spring deposits in Yellowstone National Park.
"By studying such environments, we may learn about ancient hydrothermal systems and the life that they support," said Dr Kelley.
The research vessel Atlantis, the mother ship for the deep-diving submersible Alvin, was used as the base for the underwater expedition.
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