The discovery of animal life on the deep seafloor at hydrothermal vents on the Eastern Pacific Rise is reported in a Nature Communications article. The investigation sheds new light on the complex habitats found in the depths of the ocean.
The Eastern Pacific Rise is a volcanically active ridge located at the junction of two tectonic plates on the seafloor of the Pacific Ocean.
It contains numerous hydrothermal vents—openings on the seafloor that form when seawater meets magma beneath the Earth’s crust.
Earlier research focused on organisms living on the seafloor around these vents, including worms and mussels, but the possibility of animal life beneath the shallow crust of the seafloor remained largely unexplored.
Monika Bright, Sabine Gollner and colleagues, who were aboard the Falkor research vessel (also from the Schmidt Ocean Institute), embarked on a series of dives at a hydrothermal vent site located at a depth of 2,515 meters in the Eastern Pacific Rise, using the remotely operated vehicle SuB-astian.
By exposing sections of the seafloor crust with the vehicle’s arms, the authors discovered hot, fluid-filled cavities inhabited by several species that were previously found only on the seafloor, including giant tubeworms and mobile animals such as worms and snails.
The authors suggest that larvae from deep-sea communities may settle in these subseafloor habitats, indicating a complex connectivity between seafloor ecosystems and the subseafloor.
The discovery of animal habitats in the crustal subseafloor, whose extent is currently unknown, increases the urgency of protecting against potential future environmental changes, the authors conclude.
