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Hydrothermal Vent Animals:
Deep sea hydrothermal vents are home to more than 300 animal species that survive at huge temperature extremes, at pressures 200 times that on the Earth's surface, and in water that contains poisoneous heavy metals.
photo credit: J. Delany and D. Kelley, School of Oceanography, University of Washington
This colony of palm worms, tubeworms, limpets, and snails lives in the warm fluids of a hydrothermal vent on the Juan de Fuca Ridge. The Ridge, located on the western edge of the Regional Scale Nodes study area, is one of the most geologically and biologically active sites known on the global network of mid-ocean ridges and is one of the most extreme environments on Earth. At 2200 meters (7200 feet) deep, where these animals live, there is no sunlight, no photosynthesis. Life thrives at high temperatures and pressures, extracting nutrients from a toxic brew of chemicals dissolved from rocks below the seafloor.
How do they live?
Many of the organisms are supported by microbes whose metabolism is fueled by the chemical energy created when hydrogen sulfide (which comes from the emerging fluids of the vents) is oxidized. This process is called chemosynthesis, and is similar to the way plants use the energy from the sun through photosynthesis.
 How do they live?
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