The Most Important Deep Sea Discovery

February 15, 1977, researchers lowered two-ton steel cage called Angus to seafloor near Galapagos Islands discovering first ever deep sea hydrothermal vent with vibrant bizarre dense animal community thriving there.

Discovery of animals thriving at hydrothermal vents was so surprising because until this point scientists believed entire planet’s food chain was completely reliant on photosynthesis and that no community could live without sunlight.

Hydrothermal vents form in places where two tectonic plates are separating away from each other explaining why all 240+ discovered vents are located on boundaries of Earth’s plates.

Chimneys like these are called black smokers formed from deposits of iron sulfide reaching heights of 60 meters or 18 stories at average depth of 2,100 meters.

Hot water flowing from hydrothermal vents is saturated with inorganic compounds like hydrogen sulfide which bacteria use to make glucose from water and carbon dioxide.

Giant tubeworms discovered at vents are exceptionally interesting strange creatures reaching 8 feet tall with bright red tops living symbiotically with chemosynthetic bacteria housed internally.

All creatures that form hydrothermal vent communities are part of food chain made possible by chemosynthesis with weird-looking crabs populating vent areas in massive numbers.

Prevailing primordial soup theory of life was largely based around Stanley Miller’s 1952 experiment demonstrating most amino acids can be synthesized from inorganic compounds by sending electrical charge through chemical solution.

Opposing theory introduced 1993 by geochemist Michael Russell from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory suggesting life came from harnessing energy gradients that exist when alkaline vent water mixes with more acidic seawater.

2000 discovery of Lost City hydrothermal field located in middle of Atlantic Ocean provided missing piece to Russell’s puzzle by finding first alkaline vents with pH gradient Russell hypothesized necessary for life’s emergence.

Scientists realized Lost City conditions could be pH gradient and compartmental structure Russell proposed would be needed to allow life to emerge from deep sea hydrothermal vent chimneys.

Hydrothermal vents have recently been found to exist on other worlds like Saturn’s moon Enceladus, a place where conditions might not only allow for life to exist but to begin as well.