Scientists break record by finding northernmost hydrothermal vent field

Well inside the Arctic Circle, scientists have found black smoker vents farther north than anyone has ever seen before. The cluster of five vents one towering nearly four stories in height are venting water as hot as 570 F. Dissolved sulfide minerals that solidify when vent water hits the icy...

Slotted buses keep passengers cool

... or standing in the aisle do not receive any ventilation, while those in the front seats receive airflow from the rear. The team has found that a wide vent at the front and rear of a bus will draw air into the bus at a much better rate than side windows. A similar boost can be obtained with adjustable roo...

Genetic adaptations key to microbe's survival in challenging environment

... of Waikato in Hamilton, New Zealand; and the J. Craig Venter Institute in Rockville, Md. The researchers also uncovered further adaptations to the vent environment, including genes necessary for growth and sensing environmental conditions, and a new route for nitrate assimilation related to how other ...

Census of Marine Life and ocean in Google Earth bring ocean information to life

...e coldest, saltiest water on the planet or to a new ocean environment created by an ice shelf break the size of Jamaica or to the hottest hydrothermal vent ever discoveredhot enough to melt lead! These journeys are but a few of the 129 possibilities for learning more about marine life available on the new...

Expeditions reveal gulf of California's deep sea secrets, as well as human imprints

...eparate expedition when Drogin and his colleagues discovered a hydrothermal vent just south of Loreto at a depth of 450 feet. Drogin reported dramatic views around the vent and water temperatures reaching 266 Fahrenheit degrees (130 degrees Celsius...

GKSS membranes reduce air pollution in Beijing

...ank farms in Germany is Borsig Membrane Technology. For the Chinese market there is a cooperation with the company Eurovapor which delivered about 140 vent processing systems. The membranes developed at the GKSS are manufactured in licence by the company GMT Membrantechnik GmbH in Rheinfelden. ...

Genomics of large marine animals showcased in the biological bulletin

...artindale Coupling metabolite flux to transcriptomics: Insights into the molecular mechanisms underlying primary productivity by the hydrothermal vent tubeworm Ridgeia piscesae, by Spencer V. Nyholm, Julie Robindart and Peter R. Girguis Does the high gene density in the sponge NK homeobox gene c...

Nuclear cannibals

...aseous diffusion methods. Nuclear plants might be used as combined heat and power systems so the "waste" heat is used, rather than allowing them to vent huge quantities of heat to the environment at the end of the electricity generation cycle. Pearce also suggests that we could "down-blend" nuclear wea...

Hot springs microbes hold key to dating sedimentary rocks, researchers say

...vironment. The last step in deciphering the calcium carbonate record was performing an elaborate field experiment, which drew water from a hot springs vent and compared deposition rates with and without microbes being present. Angel Terrace at Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone National Park is an ideal,...

Quakes under Pacific floor reveal unexpected circulatory system

...ho was not involved in the study. Among other things, it is a mystery where vent organisms came from--some evolutionary biologists believe they originated life on earthand how or whether they now make their way from one isolated vent system to another. The findings could add to an understanding of seafloor c...

Hydrothermal vents: Hot spots of microbial diversity

...communities will be necessary to determine the true diversity. The research also revealed that the microbial population structures differed between vent sites due to their different geochemical environments. The ability to link environmental characteristics with microbial population structures using 45...

September Geology and GSA Today media highlights

...otethyan Late Cretaceous volcanic arc hydrothermal vent fauna Crispin T.S. Little, University of Leeds,...with bacteria, including giant tube worms. Ancient vent communities are very rare, but provide important i...ittle et al. decribe a newly discovered Cretaceous vent community from a metal ore deposit in the Republic...

Study warns deep-sea mining may pose serious threat to fragile marine ecosystems

...eposits near "black smokers"—undersea hydrothermal vent systems that spew 350-degree Celsius water into th...life required sunlight, but the discovery of these vent communities showed that life could exist on therma...diment into the water column—a serious problem for vent organisms that feed by filtering the water in thei...

Ocean seep mollusks may share evolutionary history with other deep-sea creatures

...nments exist at hydrothermal vents, fissures in the ocean floor where water is superheated by magma lurking just below the crust. Although seep and vent fluids are a poisonous brew for most species, animals such as giant tube worms and the mollusks studied by Kiel and Little thrive with the help of the...

Microbe fixes nitrogen at a blistering 92 C

... discovered by the UW researchers is the first from a deep-sea hydrothermal vent that can fix nitrogen, says Mehta, first author on the Science paper. I...nce 1981 that nitrogen fixation was occurring at hydrothermal vents because vent animals had completely different nitrogen isotope ratios than non-vent deep...

Bacteria that use radiated water as food

...icroarray analysis revealed a vast number of bacterial species present, but the samples were dominated by a single new species related to hydrothermal vent bacteria from the division Firmicutes. The ancient age of the fracture water and comparative DNA analysis of the bacterial genes suggests subsurface F...

Giant deep-sea tubeworm's meal ticket comes in as a skin infection

...or"baby traps" as the team calls them, tocollect young, just-settled larvae andjuveniles. They left the traps at the bottomnear an active hydrothermal vent and returnedthe next season to collect them, bring themback to land-based laboratories, and analyzethem carefully using molecular techniques andfluore...

Asleep in the deep: Model helps assess ocean-injection strategy for combating greenhouse effect

...gas and injecting it into the ocean. But there are pitfalls in that plan. The carbon dioxide can rise toward the surface, turn into gas bubbles and vent to the atmosphere, defeating the purpose of the whole grand scheme. Even worse, if the liquid-to-gas conversion happens suddenly, the gas can bubble u...

Novel protein complex enables survival in hostile environment

...e of genome-sequence-driven proteomics techniques, they identified the gene for the enzyme. A search showed that this gene exists only in hydrothermal vent methanogens and their close relatives, but not in other microorganisms. From the sequence of the fsr gene, Johnson and Mukhopadhyay discovered th...

Secrets of the deep may hold key to life on other planets

...wn survival. These bacteria take their energy from hydrogen sulphide in the vent fluid. "They're among the fastest growing animals on the planet - a full...mal animals have already been placed in titanium mesh cages at hydrothermal vent sites 3.5km down in the ocean. Dr Little will return to these sites in the ...

Researchers reveal secrets of flying snakes

...ld at the Singapore Zoological Gardens. He positioned two video cameras to record in stereo, enabling the 3-D reconstruction of the head, midpoint and vent coordinates of the snake throughout its trajectory. Socha found that the snake uses its ribs to change its body shape; it flattens from head to ven...

Hydrogen and methane provide raw energy for life at 'Lost City'

...e anyone could have imagined. One massive seafloor vent was an unheard of 18 stories tall. And all were cr...gray, suggesting a very different composition than vent systems studied since the 1970s. Scientists who...ater circulates through the Lost City hydrothermal vent field via serpentinization, a chemical reaction be...

Researchers discover underwater volcano

...am explored the area, they discovered a number of large communities of eels inhabiting the fragile cavernous rock pillars surrounding the hydrothermal vent area. As the submarine landed near this area, scores of eels, each approximately one foot in length, emerged from the rock caves and crevices. The sci...

The secret lives of whales

...tudy of whale worms and other whale-fall species help scientists understand how life has diversified in specialized habitats in the deep-sea. Deep-sea vent tube worms may have originated from shallow-water species, using whale falls as a food source along the way. “Whale bone worms have been around for 30...