Spires of sulfur
Deep-sea vents unlike most others, in a seafloor crater in the Antarctic - with spires of sulfur spewing sulfuric acid, a "dead zone" of deceased shrimp and squid... and yet life finds a way. The inhabitants of "Kemp Caldera" revealed in our research paper out this week - so here's some background about the discovery:
Spires of sulfur... a dead zone of deceased shrimp & squid... hardy limpets, scurrying sea-spiders, lush anemones...
Deep-sea hydrothermal vents unlike most others revealed in our new paper:https://t.co/x3GHlBIMFG
So here's some info about their discovery (/thread...) pic.twitter.com/DY2IeAQUGQ
— Jon Copley (@expeditionlog) November 20, 2019
These vents are at 1.4 km deep on the slopes of a small undersea volcano...
...in an undersea crater (the "Kemp Caldera")
...next to an undersea mountain ("Kemp Seamount")
...at the southern end of the South Sandwich Islands
...in the Antarctic (2/n)
🎞️ @AGCGraham pic.twitter.com/THqXagONE6
— Jon Copley (@expeditionlog) November 20, 2019
In 2009 @rdlarter led the first of our @NERCscience ChEsSo (Chemosynthetic Ecosystems of the Southern Ocean) expeditions, aboard the RRS James Clark Ross...
...during which we discovered a seafloor caldera next to "Kemp Seamount" (3/n) pic.twitter.com/9jvILLi86k
— Jon Copley (@expeditionlog) November 20, 2019
The satellite-derived map of the area suggested fairly featureless seafloor around the seamount...
...but more detailed mapping by our ship's sonar revealed a caldera (fancy word for a crater-like feature, but not a volcano or impact crater), 4 km across & 1.6 km deep (4/n) pic.twitter.com/sntMRmlQvX
— Jon Copley (@expeditionlog) November 20, 2019
I love this: where on Earth can you find a feature 4 km across & 1.6 km high/deep that no-one knew was there before?
In the deep ocean, that's where 😎 (5/n)
— Jon Copley (@expeditionlog) November 20, 2019
On the 2009 expedition, geochemist (& "Vent-Finder-General") @DougConnelly lowered instruments into the caldera & found warmer water inside it, indicating hydrothermal vents there.
We towed a camera but didn't intercept the vents on that trip (6/n)https://t.co/AlskhXkaeN
— Jon Copley (@expeditionlog) November 20, 2019
One year later, in Jan/Feb 2010, we were back on our next ChEsSo expedition, led by @AlexDavidRogers aboard the RRS James Cook, with the UK's @NERCscience deep-diving ROV [remotely operated vehicle] (7/n) pic.twitter.com/lpzeica0wG
— Jon Copley (@expeditionlog) November 20, 2019
We sent the ROV into the caldera, and in one of the most exciting ROV dives that I've experienced, we found the vents on the small volcanic cone at its heart.
And those vents were different to the "black smoker" vents that we discovered on the nearby East Scotia Ridge (8/n) pic.twitter.com/Jd3Xdzp8st
— Jon Copley (@expeditionlog) November 20, 2019
[And by way of a bonus, during one of the ROV dives in the caldera, we stumbled across a whale skeleton on the ocean floor...
...the first in the Antarctic to be studied in situ, by @divaamon during her PhD: https://t.co/bQ32jRY2fr] (9/n) pic.twitter.com/Mqzgx8bLSt
— Jon Copley (@expeditionlog) November 20, 2019
The Kemp Caldera is a very exciting place - today's paper is an initial plunge into its biology, but there's more to come... 😉 (/end) pic.twitter.com/A59csqgAtW
— Jon Copley (@expeditionlog) November 20, 2019
[the 2009 expedition was when I started using Twitter, as a low-bandwidth way to share what we were doing at sea.
I compiled the posts from that expedition, & the 2010 trip that explored the vents, in a FREE eBook a few years ago - https://t.co/8sr1q3ueyY]
— Jon Copley (@expeditionlog) November 20, 2019
Jon Copley, November 2019
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