News

Scientists from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) have discovered a large, previously unknown field of hydrothermal vents in the Gulf of California, about 100 miles east of La Paz, Mexico. Lying more than 12,500 feet below the surface, the Pescadero Basin vents are the deepest high-temperature hydrothermal vents ever observed in or around the Pacific Ocean.

The hydrothermal vents, which were found in spring 2015, are the only ones in the Pacific known to emit superheated fluids rich in both carbonate minerals and hydrocarbons. The vents have been colonized by dense communities of tubeworms and other animals unlike any other known vent communities in the eastern Pacific.

MBARI’s seafloor-mapping autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) spent two days flying about 160 feet above the bottom of the Pescadero Basin, using sound beams to map the depth and shape of the seafloor. After the AUV team looked at the bathymetric map created from the data and saw mounds and spires rising up from the seafloor, a team of geologists used a remotely operated vehicle to dive down, fly around the vents, and collect video and samples.

The vents consisted entirely of light-colored carbonate minerals instead of the dark sulfide minerals that are abundant in hydrothermal chimneys elsewhere in the Gulf. The Pescadero Basin is only the second place in the world where carbonate chimneys have been found in the deep sea. The other known location is the “Lost City” vent field in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

Read more about the discovery here and check out MBARI’s video below.