Black smokers - hydrothermal springs at the bottom of the oceans

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:40

The bottom of the ocean is as diverse as the earth's surface. Its relief also has mountains, huge depressions, plains and cracks. Forty years ago, hydrothermal springs were also discovered there, later called “black smokers”. See the photo and description of this curiosity below.

Opening "Alvin"

It is not known how many more years the world would not know about "black smokers", if not for the expedition of Robert Ballard. In 1977, with his team of two, he went to study the depths of the sea on the Alvin apparatus. This most famous manned submersible is capable of descending to a depth of 4.5 kilometers.

He didn't have to swim that far this time. Hydromal springs were discovered already at a depth of 2 kilometers, sticking around the bottom near the Galapagos Islands. They look like huge growths from which fountains of black water beat. At a depth of several hundred meters from the bottom, almost nothing is visible due to the clubs that the “smokers” release. But below is the full picture of this oceanic miracle.

Now more than 500 hydrothermal springs are known. They are located in the region of ridges at the junctions of earth platforms. For forty years they were visited by hundreds of scientific expeditions. Tourists also have the opportunity to see them with their own eyes, however, it costs about several tens of thousands of dollars.

How do they work?

"Black smokers" are hot springs like ground-based geysers. Under the influence of the Archimedes force, they throw water into the ocean, saturated with minerals and heated to 400 degrees. A pressure of hundreds of atmospheres does not allow water to boil. In fact, it is in an intermediate state between gas and liquid, in physics it is called supercritical.

"Black smokers" are located mainly on the mid-ocean ridges. Active tectonic processes take place in these areas, under the influence of which a new crust is formed. When the lithospheric plates move apart, the magma beneath them comes out, growing in ridges to the bottom.

The formation of "smokers" is also associated with these processes. Cold sea water seeps through numerous cracks in the middle ridges. Below, it is heated by volcanic heat and mixed with magma. Over time, she makes her way up and is thrown out through a hole in the bark.

Their water is black due to the fact that it contains oxides of copper, zinc, iron, manganese and nickel. The hole from which the mixture comes out is gradually overgrown with walls of cooled metals. Branched outgrowths of bizarre shapes can reach 20, 30,and even 60 meters. After some time, they fall to the bottom, and the source continues to build up other flasks.

White Smokers

The "Black Smokers" at the bottom of the oceans are not the only ones of their kind. In addition to them, there are also white hydrothermal springs. They operate on a similar principle, only the temperatures in them are much weaker. They are removed from the edges of the plate and a direct source of heat, located on older rocks than bas alts - peridotites.

White hydrotherms are completely different in composition. Unlike their black "relatives", they do not contain ores at all. The liquid that comes out of them is saturated with carbonates, sulfates, barium, calcium, silicone. Its temperature does not exceed 80 degrees. Unlike the "black smokers", it is sea water that prevails in them, and not magmatic water.

Sources of Life

For a long time it was believed that living organisms could not exist at a depth of two or more kilometers. The water temperatures here are extremely low, there is no access to light, there are no algae capable of converting carbon dioxide into oxygen. The discovery of "black smokers" in the ocean proved that we still don't know much about our planet.

Life is literally in full swing around the hydrothermal vents. Various animals live in relatively small areas, boundary layers between incredibly hot fountains and waters of a large ocean with temperatures up to +4 degrees.

Sources are the initial link in the food chain. They saturate the water with hydrogen sulfide, which they feed on.bacteria, and they, in turn, become food for other organisms. Each new scientific expedition discovers new biological species here. For example, blind shrimp were found with translucent skin and a special organ that signals that the animal has gotten very close to the hot spring.

Ore Factories

For scientists, "black smokers" are of interest not only because of new animal species. These are real ore combines of the ocean. Most of the ore that is mined on land comes from deep oceans. It was ejected to the surface hundreds of millions of years ago, when part of the continents were under water.

Watching "smokers", scientists can see with their own eyes the whole process of creating ore by nature. Hydrothermal springs have become a kind of scientific laboratories. Now they are only observed and studied, but someday, they may become mining sites.