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Some hydrothermal vents form roughly cylindrical chimney structures. These form from minerals that are dissolved in the vent fluid. When the superheated water contacts the near-freezing sea water, the minerals precipitate out to form particles which add to the height of the stacks.
Hydrothermal circulation in the oceans is the passage of the water through mid-oceanic ridge systems. The term includes both the circulation of the well-known, high-temperature vent waters near the ridge crests, and the much-lower-temperature, diffuse flow of water through sediments and buried basalts further from the ridge crests. [3]
Ocean salinity is derived mainly from the weathering of rocks and the transport of dissolved salts from the land, with lesser contributions from hydrothermal vents in the seafloor. [12] Evaporation of ocean water and formation of sea ice further increase the salinity of the ocean.
The two areas of greatest and most rapid temperature change in the oceans are the transition zone between the surface waters and the deep waters, the thermocline, and the transition between the deep-sea floor and the hot water flows at the hydrothermal vents. Thermoclines vary in thickness from a few hundred meters to nearly a thousand meters.
The evidence suggests that deep-sea hydrothermal vent viral evolutionary strategies promote prolonged host integration, favoring a form of mutualism rather than classic parasitism. [32] As hydrothermal vents outlets [clarification needed] for sub-seafloor material, there is also likely a connection between vent viruses and those in the crust. [39]
New seafloor forms in places where magma is forced upward toward the surface at a mid-ocean ridge and cools to form volcanic rock. The hydrothermal vents spew into the cold sea the super-heated ...
A cold seep (sometimes called a cold vent) is an area of the ocean floor where seepage of fluids rich in hydrogen sulfide, methane, and other hydrocarbons occurs, often in the form of a brine pool. Cold does not mean that the temperature of the seepage is lower than that of the surrounding sea water; on the contrary, its temperature is often ...
A relief map of the Azores Triple Fault region and southern bathymetric zone. The hydrothermal vents and seamounts of the Azores (Portuguese: fontes hidrotermais e montes submarinos dos Açores) are a series of Atlantic seamounts and hydrothermal vents that are part of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge system, giving rise to the archipelago and bathymetric region of the Azores.