(dark electronic music)
(magical atmospheric music)
(dark electronic music)
- [Speaker 1] I believe so.
I think most people believe that where life began
on the planet was more than likely in a geothermal spring.
So you're looking at the basis of life.
And what's interesting about this is, you know
when we found the hydrothermal events at 77
you had the giant clams
and the two BARS and you had all this megafauna.
We don't have any megafauna here.
This is almost a bacterial-driven life system.
And I think this is what you wanna study
because it's the fundamental system
on which the other things are dependent upon.
Well, we're looking at the water
coming out at varying temperatures.
You'll see the shimmering water off to the left
and then you'll see the bubbling water.
And then you're looking at the deposits, it's laid down
which is what we just sampled.
And then you're looking
at the organic growth on top of the deposits.
Biologists love it 'cause of the life it supports.
Chemists love it because it's all
about the chemistry of the planet.
Geologists like it.
Physicists like it
'cause it helps calculate the heat budget of the planet.
Hydrothermal vents, everyone loves.
(mild atmospheric music)
This is the VanDamme Vent System,
pretty much in the central part of the Mid-Cayman Rise.
(mild atmospheric music)
- [Speaker 2] That is a lot of shrimp.
- [Speaker 3] Wow.
- [Speaker 4] That's awesome.
- [Speaker 5] Right now we are looking at some white shrimp.
They're really fascinating creatures.
We actually know that they're white
because they don't have any pigment.
They actually also don't have eyes.
They have more like light sensors
that help them move around.
So really fascinating creatures.
- [Speaker 1] Look at that right there.
Hold on that.
Let that work for you for a minute.
Just hold that shot.
Continue that.
That's very cool.
That's very hot actually.
- [Speaker 6] So a hydrothermal vent is essentially
a fissure in the planet's surface
and there's geothermally-heated water coming out of it.
And they're only found near volcanically active places.
So where tectonic plates are moving apart.
And these hydrothermal vents will form these black smokers.
- [Speaker 7] Bob Ballard was actually the first person
to discover hydrothermal vents in the Galapagos.
We were just discussing earlier on in the cruise
how there's amazing gradients at these chimneys.
So within the black smoke
you might have really high temperatures
really high concentrations of a lot of those heavy metals.
But if you were to move maybe a meter away
or down the side of the chimney,
you would transition to a lot colder water
and lower concentrations really rapidly.
So that allows some of the biology
to live really really close,
but not quite inside the mouth of the chimney.
- [Speaker 8] For our viewers
just joining us online right now,
we are at the Endeavor segment of the Juan de Fuca Ridge
the spreading center in between the Pacific plate
and the Juan de Fuca plate
off the coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada.
- [Speaker 9] That's pretty amazing.
- [Speaker 8] That's incredible.
We are over two kilometers
below the surface of the ocean right now
and sunlight attenuates far before that,
which means that all of this life,
just about all the life right around the vents
is actually based on chemosynthesis,
which is the reduction of hydrogen sulfide
by chemosynthetic bacteria
that have mutualistic relationships
with a lot of the animals here.
- [Speaker 10] So we are at the main Endeavor Field
which is the most-active segment
of five hydrothermal vents within the Endeavor segment.
We've been particularly careful in this environment.
It's thrilling visually to see, but you know
high blood pressure inducing
for pilots to fly in an environment like this
where there are these hot fluid smokers in all directions.
1.3 miles under water finding something
that's 326.6 degrees Celsius,
over three times the boiling temperature of water.
Absolutely incredible.
We will also be setting up an instrument at this location
the Benthic and Resistivity Sensor,
the BARS instrument
that will be here to collect continuous data
over the next year or more.
- [Speaker 11] So those of you who are just tuning-in
we were just sampling some tube worms
at a hydrothermal vent site.
We are at an area called North Aquinas Black Smoker.
We're in the Gulf of California currently,
and this is the first dive
for Nautilus in these Mexico waters.
We are looking to characterize some
of the different vent structures
looking at some of the biology
and the venting that's occurring at these sites.
- [Speaker 12] That's great.
- [Speaker 13] A great picture.
- [Speaker 14] Very vertical.
- [Speaker 15] This is gorgeous.
- [Speaker 16] That's amazing right there.
(people mumbling)
- [Speaker 17] Wow.
(person whistling)
(soothing atmospheric music)