Scientists discover hydrothermal vents and deep-sea life

In February 1977 the research submersible Alvin, diving about 2,500 metres on the Galapagos Rift in the Pacific with the geologists Jack Corliss and Tjeerd van Andel on board, found hot springs gushing from the sea floor and surrounded by dense communities of giant tube worms, clams and crabs. The animals lived not on sunlight but on bacteria that make food from chemicals in the vent water, in a process called chemosynthesis. Black smokers were found two years later on the East Pacific Rise. The discovery showed that life can thrive without sunlight and heat from the Sun, and changed ideas about where life began on Earth and where it might exist on other worlds.

Open on the timeline