HYDROTHERMAL VENTS are the planet’s exhaust pipes. Kilometres underneath the sea floor, they relentlessly belch out searing scorching water rife with harsh chemical substances from underneath Earth’s crust. Once they had been first found out in 1977, no one anticipated those inhospitable websites to undergo indicators of lifestyles. And but, thriving along those vents had been colonies of tubeworms, mussels and clams fully new to science. It’s laborious to consider an atmosphere which may be extra opposed. Now new paintings is revealing proof that those animals are elevating their younger in simply the sort of position: the fractured rocks underneath the vents themselves.
