"Vents in the deep sea-only accessible by submersibles-are generally out of sight and therefore out of the public mind," Ramirez-Llodra said. "We [ChEss] believe that holding a public event is essential to increase the public's awareness of the existence, functioning and beauty of these ecosystems that some scientists believe may be the site for the origin of life".
Based at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton in the United Kingdom, ChEss focuses on the diversity, abundance and distribution of the animals living in hydrothermal systems and other chemosynthetic-or chemically driven-environments and aims to produce a catalogue of these deep-sea species by 2010.
30 Years of Vent Research: Milestones and Challenges
Since the 1977 discovery, scientists have explored about 10 percent of the mid-ocean ridge. This 40,000-mile-long mountain range zigzags up and down the middle of the world's ocean basins like a giant zipper, said Christopher German, ChEss co-chair and also co-chair of InterRidge, an international nonprofit organization that will help run the public event.
The ridge marks the area where the Earth's tectonic plates spread apart and new crust forms from hot lava rising from the mantle. In and around the ridge are hydrothermal vents, volcanic structures that look like chimneys and gush super-hot, mineral-rich fluids. About 100 vent sites have so far been discovered, German said.
"Wherever we look along the ridge, we find vents," he said, "and the vents in different regions of the ocean host very different animals."
"The biggest challenge for the future of our research is to design more efficient ways of exploring the remaini
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Contact: Darlene Crist
darlene.crist@cox.net
401-295-1356
Census of Marine Life
21-Jun-2007