Hell as Habitat, part 2

Image: NOAA

Last time, we left the hydrothermal vents as steaming chimneys of boiling volcanic water, liquid smoke and underground flame.

Minerals spew out and, through a process called chemosynthesis, bacteria are able to take poisonous hydrogen sulphide and make from it all the sugars they need for survival.

They flourish in this deadly atmosphere and provide a source of food for a whole host of animals. They rely on energy not from the Sun, but from Earth herself.

It's a community of life, sitting on a mat of bacteria atop a volcano. Makes that elephants on a turtle one sound quite reasonable, doesn't it?

Supergiant Amphipod

So they found a massive amphipod over 4 miles deep in the Kermadec Trench off New Zealand. A good sized amphipod is usually a few centimetres long (an inch) but this thing is 28 cm (almost a foot)! And that's the biggest one they managed to drag up, they actually spotted on camera one that was 34 cm (over a foot) long.

Stalked Jellyfish

Image: Wikipedia

Stalked Jellyfish? What? It may seem strange but there really is such a thing as a jellyfish with a stalk. They have abandoned the usual life of swimming with the sea's most graceful wobble and have instead opted to attach themselves to the floor and stay there.

Greenland Shark

Image: Nick Caloyianis/National Geographic

It snowed. I hate it when it snows because snow becomes ice and my utter loathing for ice on the pavement is matched only by my fear and hatred of slipping and falling. Next time you walk on ice, please tread harshly because you tread on my nightmares. Good job I don't come from the world's most ironically named country, like a certain shark I know.

Hell as Habitat

Image: NOAA
Darkness spews into the darkness.

There is a Hell on Earth. A real one, not that silly fake one. It's a place where our glorious Sun is a long banished frivolity. A place of such insurmountable evil that chocolate is frozen by the cold, melted by the heat and crushed by the pressure. It's so dark that if you drop your chocolate, it will be lost and gone forever. Indeed, it's so dark that the Tree of Chocolate won't even grow.

Chocolate! Why have you forsaken us!

We're talking about hydrothermal vents.

Sea Apple

Image: emmiegrn via Flickr

What happens when you take a cucumber and squish it up a little? You get an apple of course! Or at least that's what happens in the sea...