The Mid-Atlantic Ridge and the area around it are filled with fascinating discoveries. But none can quite compete with the landscape of carbonate towers, walls, and columns near the tip of an underwater mountain. No, it isn’t Atlantis. It’s the ‘Lost City’ Hydrothermal Field, and scientists have found nothing else like it on Earth.
The ocean ventilation system
Remotely operated vehicles discovered the Lost City in the year 2000. The city stands 700 meters, or 2,300 feet below the surface, and it is the longest-living venting environment found in the ocean so far. Researchers explain that the upthrusting mantle puffs dissolve gases, like methane and hydrogen, removing them from the seawater. This process had existed for the past 120,000, or perhaps even longer. The columns are like chimneys, releasing gases as hot as 40 degrees Celcius or 104 degrees Fahrenheit.
Residents of the Lost City
Hydrocarbons reside in the nooks and crannies in the field’s vents. They don’t need oxygen to feed the unique, local microbial communities. Despite the extreme environment, the towers are home to a wide variety of crustaceans and snails. There are also crabs, sea urchins, shrimps, and eels, though in fewer numbers.
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Building blocks of life
The hydrocarbons come from chemical reactions on the seafloor. Hydrocarbons, by definition, are organic chemical compounds made only of carbon and hydrogen. They appear in nature, like in plants, like the African Euphorbia tirucalli, and in the aforementioned hydrothermal field. Hydrocarbons are the building blocks of life, and the existence of the Lost City opens the possibility of similar worlds.
An ecosystem on moons
“This is an example of a type of ecosystem that could be active on Enceladus or Europa right this second,” microbiologist William Brazelton said in 2018 to The Smithsonian, referring to the moons of Saturn and Jupiter. “And maybe Mars in the past.” Additionally, researchers believe similar hydrothermal fields exist in other underwater locations, but they have yet to be found.
The Lost City and black smokers
Do not confuse the Lost City Hydrothermal Field with black smokers, also known as underwater volcanic vents. They are also labeled as potential first habitats, but black smokers depend on magma’s heat to function while the Lost City does not. And while the Lost City produces hydrogen and methane on a massive scale, black smokers produce mostly sulfur- and iron-rich minerals on a much smaller level. Plus, the Lost City’s vents are larger, suggesting they’ve been active for much longer than black smokers.
The tallest tower
The tallest chimney is over 60 meters high and is named Poseidon after the Greek god of the sea. The researchers at the University of Washington explain the venting movement as leaking fluids creating “clusters of delicate, multi-pronged carbonate growths that extend outward like the fingers of upturned hands.”
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Drilling mantle near the Lost City
In 2023, researchers from the International Ocean Discovery Program drilled into the Atlantic Massif near the Lost City. The scientists on the JOIDES Resolution research vessel made remarkable discoveries and managed to drill the deepest-ever rock sample from the planet’s mantle in the Mid-Atlantic Ridge where the seafloor splits apart.
The limits of life
“Every time the drillers recovered another section of deep core, the microbiology team collected samples to culture bacteria to determine the limits of life in this deep subsurface marine ecosystem,” Gordon Southam said to Live Science. Southam is a geomicrobiologist at the University of Queensland. “Our ultimate goal is to improve our understanding of the origins of life and to define the potential for life beyond Earth,” he said.
A new sea of knowledge
“We collected so many more samples than we had been expecting that we had already consumed many of our sample collection supplies by halfway through the expedition,” said co-author William Brazelton, a microbiologist at the University of Utah. The microbiology team used sledgehammers to smash rocks on the vessel for almost all hours of the day during the two-month project.
“The nearly continuous recovery down to 1.2 km provides an excellent opportunity to document the relationships among microbial diversity, abundance, and activity with depth and temperature, including temperatures approaching the limit for life,” said Brazelton.
The team’s findings were published in the journal Science
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Sources
- “Scientists drill longest-ever piece of Earth’s mantle from underwater mountain near ‘Lost City’.” Live Science. Stephanie Pappas. August 8, 2024
- “A deeper dive into Earth’s mantle.” Science. Eric Hellebrand. August 8, 2024
- “Diving Deep to Reveal the Microbial Mysteries of Lost City.” Smithsonian Magazine. Anna Kusmer. September 7, 2018