Friday, October 8, 2010

FLASH: Yellowstone Lake has hydrothermal vents

Who da thunk it? The place with more than 75% (could be even 90%) of the world's geysers actually has hydrothermal vents offshore of a lakeshore geyser basin?

Actually, that really isn't the big deal; it was known that the lake had underwater hydrothermal vents, lots of them, in fact. The discovery is that at least one of the vents has associated flora and fauna, somewhat akin to mid-ocean ridge vent systems. Apparently most of the others didn't (distinct from on land, where the springs are colonized with thermophilic bacteria, that gives the runoff channels riots of color).

So here's a couple of articles about this.

Steamy Yellowstone Vents Found Teeming with Life

MSU team finds rare oasis of life on floor of Yellowstone Lake (includes a video, and not a very exciting one, at that)

No comments: