HYDROTHERMAL VENTS are the planet’s exhaust pipes. Kilometres under the ocean floor, they relentlessly belch out searing sizzling water rife with harsh chemical substances from beneath Earth’s crust. Once they have been first found in 1977, no person anticipated these inhospitable websites to bear indicators of life. And but, thriving alongside these vents have been colonies of tubeworms, mussels and clams completely new to science. It’s laborious to think about an atmosphere that may very well be extra hostile. Now, nonetheless, new work is revealing proof that these animals are elevating their younger in simply such a spot: the fractured rocks beneath the vents themselves.
