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 Hydrothermal vent expedition GET PREPARED! This incredible activity is made possible by the collaboration of: In this short document, you will learn a few new words and concepts that will help you participate fully in the deep-­‐sea adventure on April 29th. The science team is excited and ready to welcome you aboard the Research Vessel Falkor. Let us take you deeper than you ever been in your life! 1/10 Hydrothermal vent expedition GET PREPARED! PREPARE YOUR DEEP-­‐SEA LOG Before… I know that: “Student should write down what they know about deep-­‐sea environments” I wonder if: “Student should develop curiosity about the topic” I hope that: “Student should start to get excited in anticipation of the dive” After… I learned: “Student should list things they have learnt about deep-­‐sea environments” My favorite part was: “Student should describe which elements were particularly memorable” I want to know more about: “Student should start to develop their own questions about the environment, especially considering how much there is still to learn about the deep sea” 2/10 Hydrothermal vent expedition GET PREPARED! A few terms to keep in mind during your expedition 1.
HYDROTHERMAL VENT Hot spots on the planet surface from where geothermally heated water erupts. A hydrothermal vent forms when cold sea water meets hot magma, becomes hot and buoyant, and rises up through the rock to the seafloor. As it reaches the seafloor, the water cools, precipitating plumes of mineral particulates. These form chimneys such as “black smokers” or “white smokers”, the colour depending on the minerals deposited. (Source: NOAA)
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ANAEROBIC When a process occurs without oxygen. For instance, some living creatures can metabolise anaerobically and so can survive in oxygen-­‐depleted environments or in the absence of oxygen. 3.
MAGMA A mixture of molten or semi-­‐molten rock, volatile gases and solids that is found beneath the surface of the Earth, such as at volcanoes. 4.
TECTONIC PLATE A tectonic plate is a massive, irregularly shaped slab of solid rock, generally composed of both continental and oceanic crust. Plate size can vary greatly, from a few hundred to thousands of kilometers across. Earthquake and volcanic activity are concentrated near boundaries of different tectonic plates. (Source: USGS) 5.
SUBDUCTION ZONE Places on Earth where one tectonic plate is forced underneath another plate. In the case of the Lau basin (Fiji), the Pacific plate is pushed under the Indo-­‐Australian plate. The result is a very active zone for hydrothermal vents. (Source: NOAA)
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ENDEMIC SPECIES A species that has a limited distribution in a particular ecosystem. For instance, some species are “endemic” to a particular thermal vent. Their habitat is restricted to a particular area. 7.
CHEMOSYNTHETIC BACTERIA All chemosynthetic organisms use the energy released by chemical reactions to make sugar, to “build itself”. Chemosynthetic bacteria are bacteria that can live without input from the sun. 3/10 Hydrothermal vent expedition GET PREPARED! A few questions to discuss Ø What is the average depth of the ocean? Answer: 3.68 km (Source: NOAA) Ø How deep is the deepest point of the ocean? Answer: 11.03 km. The deepest part of the ocean is the Challenger Deep and is located beneath the western Pacific Ocean in the southern end of the Mariana Trench (Source: NOAA) Ø At what depth can we find the black smokers field studied by RV Falkor’s team? Answer: To be determined. Between 2 000 and 3 000 m depth. (Source: Schmidt Ocean Institute) Ø If the pressure is 1 atm on your shoulder right now and you have to add 1 atm of pressure for every 10 meters you go down underwater, then what is the pressure on ROPOS at the bottom of the Lau Basin? Answer: Will depend on the answer before… Ø What is a hydrothermal vent? What is a black smoker? Answer: Hydrothermal vents are the result of seawater percolating down through fissures in the ocean crust in the vicinity of spreading centers or subduction zones (places on Earth where two tectonic plates move away or towards one another). The cold seawater is heated by hot magma and re-­‐emerges to form the vents. Seawater in hydrothermal vents may reach temperatures of over 340°C (700°F). “Black smokers” are chimneys formed from deposits of iron sulfide, which is black. (Source: NOAA) Ø What role do hydrothermal vents play in the ocean? Answer: Seafloor hydrothermal vent complexes can be compared to household ventilation systems, in that these systems transfer heat and chemicals from the interior of the Earth, playing a big part in global ocean chemistry. (Source: Schmidt Ocean Institute) Ø Using a GOOGLE EARTH “SILENT MAP”, can you situate the Lau Basin (Fiji)? Answer: Have fun… Ø Can you explain what’s happening between the Pacific plate and the Australian plate that is causing magmatic activity near Fiji? Answer: In the case of the Lau basin (Fiji), the Pacific plate is pushed under the Indo-­‐Australian plate. The result is a very active zone for hydrothermal vents. (Source: NOAA) 4/10 Hydrothermal vent expedition GET PREPARED! Ø Is there any life at hydrothermal vents? Can you name a few organisms living there? Answer: Crabs, shrimp, snails, mussels, barnacles, scale worms, sea anemones, fish, bacteria, etc… Ø Can you list the main challenges of living at vents? Answer: High pressure, less oxygen, lack of day light, water acidity, water temperature Ø Can you find a few strategies that organisms have to overcome those challenges? Answer: In complete darkness many animals have either lost their eyes or have very small eyes. To ‘see’, they have developed other methods. For example, some vent shrimp have sensory organs on their back that can help them detect the faint glow/heat signature that vents give off. If there is no light, there is no point in investing in colour pigments, as no one can see you. So many vent animals (crabs, fish, some shrimp and snails) are white. Others are red or pink – red light is the first light to be lost at depth, so being red or pink makes you invisible, which is good if there are other animals out there trying to eat you. Most of the adaptations are internal and relate to metabolism. These include specialised proteins and enzymes that can tolerate high temperatures. For example, hairy-­‐shelled Alviniconcha vent snails at Lau can tolerate temperatures of 45˚C, the smooth-­‐shelled Ifremeria snails have a lower tolerance of 33˚C, whilst the vent mussels have a much lower temperature tolerance of 20˚C. The surrounding seawater is closer to 2˚C. Vent animals also have respiratory adaptations, such as different oxygen binding pigments to cope with low oxygen concentrations; oxygen concentrations around the snail habitats can be 35% of the surrounding seawater. All vent animals rely on the chemosynthetic bacteria for energy. Either they graze on bacterial mat growing on the vents, they garden bacteria on their own bodies or they have bacteria housed inside themselves within specialised organs. This means vent animals need to have a high tolerance for sulfides, as the bacteria need hydrogen sulfide to metabolise. Hydrogen sulfide (the smell of rotten eggs) is toxic to most organisms but vent animals have adapted their internal chemistry to tolerate it, some even actively take it into their blood stream using specialised pigments so they can feed their internal bacteria. Ø Create and draw a SUPER DEEP-­‐SEA CREATURE that would live perfectly in this special environment: Name of your creature : 5/10 Hydrothermal vent expedition GET PREPARED! Ø Where do biological communities get their energy without any help from the sun? Answer: Photosynthesis and chemosynthesis are both processes by which organisms produce food; photosynthesis is powered by sunlight whilst chemosynthesis runs on chemical energy. Chemosynthesis is at the heart of vent communities, sustaining life in the darkness, where sunlight does not penetrate. All chemosynthetic organisms use the energy released by chemical reactions to make a sugar, but different species use different pathways. The most extensive ecosystem based on chemosynthesis lives around hydrothermal vents. Vent bacteria oxidize hydrogen sulfide, add carbon dioxide and oxygen, and produce sugar, sulfur, and water: CO2 + 4H2S + O2 -­‐> CH20 + 4S + 3H2O. (Source: NOAA) Entire ecosystems fueled by chemical metabolisms, as opposed to solar reactions such as photosynthesis, are not fully understood by scientists and could help explain how life could exist on other planets. (Source: Schmidt Ocean Institute) Ø What are the challenges for scientists to study the deep ocean? Answer: There are many. •
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High pressure: Any air-­‐spaces will be compressed, any leak could lead to implosion and damage to equipment Complete darkness: to observe the animals and work around the vents we need to bring our own big lights. and power supply. No air, so noThere’s no light -­‐we need to bring big spot lights and big batteries No power supply: without air, the combustion engines used by vehicles on land can’t work. Instead, we have to use a power cable connected to the ship – at 3 000 m that means 3 km of cable! High temperatures: Heat dissipates quickly in water, but the vent fluid coming out of the chimneys can be more than 300˚C. To sample this fluid, measure its temperature or conduct science near the vents, materials need to be heat resistant. The ‘snorkels’ used to sample this super-­‐heated fluid are made of titanium because of this. Navigation without landmarks: In 3 km of water column, there are no landmarks to navigate by. The ROV needs very accurate positioning equipment so it can navigate to the vents. At the vents themselves, the chimneys can be 10 m tall, it is dark and the high temperature could melt parts of the ROV, so ROPOS needs sonar and multiple cameras to avoid bumping into anything. Weather conditions: Bad weather can make the ship roll, which means it is not safe to deploy the ROV. It can also be hard to work in the laboratory when everything is sliding around! Trying to look down a microscope can make you quite seasick! 6/10 Hydrothermal vent expedition GET PREPARED! Deep-­‐sea science is expensive: Because the equipment needs to withstand high temperatures and pressures and is designed to take very specific samples on the seafloor, it is very expensive. Many items of equipment are custom-­‐made and cannot be easily replaced. • Research vessels are isolated: If something breaks at sea, the sites are often too far from land to get help with repairs. This means the engineers and scientists have to take all the tools and spare parts with them to fix anything that breaks. They often end up making repairs and new equipment on the fly using everyday items – I’ve seen a pH sensor made using a silver hoop earring! Ø What tools do they use? What is ROPOS? •
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ROPOS is one of the world leading scientific submersibles. It is a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) designed to carry out a wide range of scientific explorations at depths of up to 5000 m. ROPOS weighs 6000 lbs. and measures 5 ft wide x 9 ft long x 7 ft high. The ROPOS system has logged over 3500 operating hours in its 1400+ dives, the longest dive to date was 74 hours on the Virtual Vents Cruise with Falkor in March 2016. ROPOS carries a suite of "core" observation tools. These include two digital video cameras (one mounted on the vehicle, another mounted on the cage); two manipulator arms each capable of lifting up to 600 lbs; a suction sampler and rotating sampling tray; sonar; and a telemetry (positioning) system. The manipulator arms can be fitted with various tools that act as ROPOS’ hands, such as stainless steel jaws, manipulator feedback sensors (to indicate how hard ROPOS is gripping something), rope cutters, snap hooks, and core tubes. ROPOS can also be outfitted with up to eight additional custom-­‐designed observation tools specific to each mission. This equipment can be installed in any one of the eight available hydraulic power packs. Examples of custom-­‐designed tools include a hot-­‐fluid sampler, chemical scanner, tubeworm stainer, rock-­‐coring drill, rock-­‐cutting chainsaw, laser-­‐illuminated, range gated camera, and downward-­‐looking digital scanning sonar. ROPOS’ ability to carry such a wide variety of observation tools on each dive provides scientists with exceptional flexibility, as they can quickly respond to new and unexpected discoveries on the sea floor. All data collected by ROPOS are simultaneously transmitted to the vehicle’s pilot, a bank of video recorders, and a data-­‐management recorder. The data-­‐management recorder logs all of the observational and navigational data collected during a dive, and keeps the pilot apprised with a continuously updated readout of the ship, cage, and vehicle positions. While ROPOS is designed to be relatively easy to operate, the amount of information dispatched during a "typical" dive requires at least four people (and sometimes more) to be present in the control room. These four individuals are the "Hot 7/10 Hydrothermal vent expedition GET PREPARED! Seat" scientist, pilot, manipulator operator, and data/event logger. The “Hot Seat” scientist is responsible for typing log entries on the seabed characteristics (geology, morphology), biological communities and anything else important to the science mission. (Source: ropos.com) • Ø Can you create something new that could help scientists study hydrothermal vents? Answer: Imagination is more important than knowledge (Source: Albert Einstein) Ø Why are humans increasingly interested in understanding hydrothermal vents environments? Answer: The vents create sulfide deposits, which contain valuable metals. You can find silver, gold, cobalt, copper, zinc and manganese at hydrothermal vents. These deposits could be mined using either hydraulic pumps or bucket systems that take ore to the surface to be processed. These mineral deposits are smaller than those on land but of a higher mineral grade (more concentrated) making them economically appealing. (Source: Science) Ø Are there any threats to hydrothermal vent ecosystems? Answer: Until recently, the costs of undersea mining were so high that it was not profitable. The tools needed to mine vents were only built in 2015 and as yet, full-­‐scale vent mining has not happened anywhere in the world. However, the seafloor of Papua New Guinea has been licenced for vent mining by Nautilus Inc. and commercial extraction will start in 2017. Although vents have been studied by many scientists, very little is known about how the vent communities will respond to mining disturbance. We do not know if they can recover from mining, or how long that recovery would take. Many scientists are urgently increasing research efforts to provide answers to these questions, so that informed decisions can be made on where it is acceptable to mine and what conservation strategies would be the most effective. Ø What is the main scientific question that the Vent Life Expedition on-­‐board the RV Falkor is trying to answer? Answer: With the advent of deep-­‐sea mining, big changes could be on the horizon for hydrothermal vent ecosystems. However, if these areas are not explored, investigated, and recorded prior to environmental disturbance, we may never know what was there. The remotely operated vehicle (ROV) ROPOS will travel up to 2.7 Km (9000 feet) to the deep seafloor of the Lau Basin. Once on the bottom, the extremely versatile ROV will perform a range of scientific tasks including visual and sonar surveys, collecting specimens and samples, and taking environmental measurements. This extensive study will provide new insights into the level of volcanic and tectonic activity in the Lau basin, the ecology of hydrothermal vent communities, and the sensitivity of vent animals to potential human impacts. Scientists anticipate that the results from these studies will inform impact assessment protocols and policies at deep sea sites 8/10 Hydrothermal vent expedition GET PREPARED! in the Western Pacific biogeographic province that may be the target of future mining. (Source: Schmidt Ocean Institute) Ø Will you be part of this endeavour to explore and understand the ocean? Answer: If you want to get involved, there is a place for you in this adventure! “Ocean exploration is truly interdisciplinary. It requires close collaboration among biologists, chemists, climatologists, computer programmers, engineers, geologists, meteorologists, physicists, animators, and illustrators. And these interactions foster new ideas and new perspectives for inquiries.” (Source: coexploration.org) Now that you know more about deep-­‐sea environment and oceans, it’s your responsibility to share your knowledge with others! “For the deep-­‐sea to have a future in a rapidly changing world, we need more dedicated and passionate people to study the ocean, help to unlock its secrets, and communicate these discoveries to others.” (Source: Rachel Boschen) With ambassadors like you, FISH EYE PROJECT
is confident that our Ocean is in good hands.
9/10 Hydrothermal vent expedition GET PREPARED! BONUS SECTION… A FEW LINKS TO GET YOU EXCITED How deep is the ocean? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7KtarElq0A What does a hydrothermal vent look like? Fish Eye View of a Virtual Vent (scroll your mouse or move your iPad!): https://youtu.be/Ki8ly9gW3dM RV Falkor’s short research documentaries: 1. Virtual Vents, assembling the team: https://youtu.be/JMQRVFRoET0 2. Virtual Vents, the discovery begins: https://youtu.be/wWFo8NlkWfA 3. Virtual Vents, sampling and exploring: https://youtu.be/LD4E884pomI Vent Life Expedition Cruise Log: http://bit.ly/26fEGsl Visit the Falkor ship in 360°: http://schmidtocean.org/falkor-­‐3/ **Document prepared by: Fish Eye Project & Dr. Rachel Boschen, Univ. of Victoria 10/10