Chemosynthetic primary production by microbes supports abundant faunal assemblages at deep-sea hydrothermal vents, with zonation of invertebrate species typically occurring along physico-chemical gradients. Recently discovered vent fields on the East Scotia Ridge (ESR) in the Southern Ocean represent a new province of vent biogeography, but the spatial dynamics of their distinct fauna have yet ...

Direct measurements of shell growth of an unclassified mussel from active hydrothermal vents along the Galápagos Rift reveal growth rates of approxmately 1 centimeter per year for mature specimens. The largest mussel collected (with shell length of 18.4 centimeters) was estimated to be 19 +/- 7 years old at the time of sampling. Recorded growth rates are among the highest documented for deep-se...

Among the deep-sea hydrothermal vent sites discovered in the past 30 years, Lost City on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge (MAR) is remarkable both for its alkaline fluids derived from mantle rock serpentinization and the spectacular seafloor carbonate chimneys precipitated from these fluids. Despite high concentrations of reduced chemicals in the fluids, this unique example of a serpentinite-hosted hydro...

COMPARISONS WITH OLYMPUS MONS LAVA FANS, MARS. J.E. Bleacher, W.B. Garry, J.R. Zimbelman, P.W. Richardson. Planetary Geodynamics Laboratory, Code 698, NASA GSFC, Greenbelt, MD, 20771, [email protected], Center for Earth and Planetary Studies, Smithsonian Institution, PO Box 37012, National Air and Space Museum MRC 315, Washington, D.C. 20013-7012, Earth and Space Sciences, University of...

Galbibacter marinum strain ck-I2-15(T) was isolated from an arsenite-resistant consortium enriched from the deep sea sediment of a hydrothermal vent field on the Southwest Indian Ocean Ridge. Here, we present the draft genome of strain ck-I2-15(T), which contains 3,572,447 bp with a G+C content of 37.04% and contains 3,099 protein-coding genes and 38 tRNA genes.

Exploration for robotic mapping is typically handled using greedy entropy reduction. Here we show how to apply information lookahead planning to a challenging instance of this problem in which an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) maps hydrothermal vents. Given a simulation of vent behaviour we derive an observation function to turn the planning for mapping problem into a POMDP. We test a vari...

Cultivation-independent studies have shown that taxa belonging to the "deep-sea hydrothermal vent euryarchaeota 2" (DHVE2) lineage are widespread at deep-sea hydrothermal vents. While this lineage appears to be a common and important member of the microbial community at vent environments, relatively little is known about their overall distribution and phylogenetic diversity. In this study, we e...

The mineral greigite presents similar surface structures to the active sites found in many modern-day enzymes. We show that particles of greigite can reduce CO2 under ambient conditions into chemicals such as methanol, formic, acetic and pyruvic acid. Our results also lend support to the Origin of Life theory on alkaline hydrothermal vents.