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Hydrothermal vents occur where there is volcanic activity. Cracks that form in the sea floor allow water to flow through the ocean crust where it is heated by the nearby magma chambers.
High temperatures in the deep sea
Water can reach temperatures of up to 400°C where it dissolves metals and salts as it travels through the rocks. It then travels back into the ocean via hydrothermal vents.
A hydrothermal vent (image by the NOAA)
The environment around these vents is extremely hostile as there is often no light, there is a lot of pressure because it is deep below the ocean surface and the vent plumes can include a lot of toxic chemicals including hydrogen sulphide which is poisonous to many animals on land. However, vents still manage to host an assortment of different creatures including tube worms and crabs which thrive on this environment. A type of bacteria has been discovered which uses the toxic gas as an energy source, and in turn this bacteria acts as a food source for crabs, clams and tube worms.
An image of a community of galatheid crabs, taken by oceanographer Robert Hessler of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography during a 1979 expedition to the Galápagos Rift (image from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)
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