The Most Important Deep Sea Discovery

on february 15 1977 a two-ton steel cage called angus was lowered to the sea floor near the galapagos islands it was equipped with cameras and powerful strobe lights and a sensor that could detect water temperature changes as small as 5 000 of a degree all through the night angus took thousands of photos while researchers monitored the temperature readings hoping to see a spike that would indicate that they had found what they were looking for a deep sea hydrothermal vent after many hours of searching angus finally sent out a signal it had registered a spike in water temperature the next day the scientists developed the 3 000 photos that angus had taken on its 16 kilometer journey they studied every single photo frame by frame until they reached the photos that corresponded with the time when the temperature spike occurred all of the photographs taken before the temperature anomaly showed only barren terrain but for 13 frames during the temperature spike the photos revealed that the sea floor was covered with hundreds of white clams and brown mussel shells this was certainly not what the researchers were expecting with no light trickling down whatsoever the deep sea floor is supposed to be a barren wasteland thrilled and confused by what they had just found the researchers prepared alvin the three-person deep-sea research submarine to investigate the three pilots navigated to the spot where the temperature spike occurred and what they found stunned them coming out of small cracks in the ocean floor was warm shimmering water they had successfully found what they had hoped to the first ever discovered deep sea hydrothermal vent but what they absolutely did not expect to find was a vibrant bizarre and dense community of animals thriving there from alvin the pilots could see one foot long white clams thousands of brown mussels and many strange looking white crabs later they found a vent site full of massive eight foot tall white stock tube worms with bright red tops the discovery of these animals was so surprising because up until this point it was believed that the entire planet's food chain was completely reliant on photosynthesis and that no community of animals could live without sunlight what were these animals eating down there with no sunlight whatsoever water samples from the vents gave the scientists their first clue as the researchers opened up the first water sample the smell of rotten eggs filled the room the water was full of hydrogen sulfide something about the chemicals coming from the vents was allowing the animals to live at these depths without food from sunlight this would be the beginning of a game-changing revelation in chemistry and biology that changes how we think about where and how life began on earth hydrothermal vents form in places where two tectonic plates are separating away from each other this is why all of the hydrothermal vents that have been discovered to date over 240 of them are located on the boundaries of earth's plates the vents are a result of sea water percolating down through fissures in the ocean crust in the vicinity of spreading centers then from pressure and temperature the water is forced back up and released back into the ocean and with the water comes many different minerals which start to precipitate out once they touch the cold sea floor these precipitations start forming hydrothermal chimney stacks which have been found to be as tall as 60 meters or 18 stories high they are magnificent structures found in an average depth of 2100 meters with the deepest ones being found at 3 800 meters chimneys like these are called black smokers and are formed from deposits of iron sulfide the plumes emit all sorts of heavy metals and sulfides stuff that would be extremely toxic to most creatures and the temperature of the water coming from the vents can reach up to 400 degrees celsius not boiling because of the immense pressure at these depths it is an extremely harsh environment and yet life here thrives the giant clams and eight-foot long tube worms are exceptionally interesting and strange creatures but it is in fact a smaller organism that makes these ecosystems possible the microbes that convert the mineral laden fluid into energy instead of using light energy to turn carbon dioxide into sugar like plants do they use energy released by chemical reactions of the minerals spewed from the vents to make a sugar a process known as chemosynthesis for reference plant photosynthesis uses the sun's energy to transfer electrons from water to carbon dioxide to produce carbohydrates to create sugar without the sun however is a different process during chemosynthesis the source of energy is energy liberated from a chemical reaction the oxidation of an inorganic substance rather than energy harvested from sunlight hot water flowing from the hydrothermal vents is saturated with inorganic compounds like hydrogen sulfide the bacteria use energy stored in the chemical bonds of hydrogen sulfide to make glucose from water and carbon dioxide pure sulfur and sulfur compounds are produced as byproducts and this is the process that allows the vibrant communities of deep sea animals to survive the giant tube worms for example live symbiotically with these bacteria the bacteria lives inside the worm allowing the worm to utilize the sugar molecules created these weird-looking crabs also populate hydrothermal vent areas in massive numbers they too survive directly off the sugars produced by the chemosynthetic bacteria growing in their bristles other animals feed off of the clams mussels or crabs that feed on the bacteria all of the creatures that form the hydrothermal vent communities are part of a food chain made possible by chemosynthesis our knowledge of chemosynthetic communities only began with that fateful discovery of the first hydrothermal vent communities in the 1970s since then chemosynthetic bacteria have been found in hot springs on land and on whale carcasses and sunken ships at the bottom of the ocean and their discovery has changed the entire way scientists think about the origins of life itself scientists generally agree that the origin of life on earth involved an evolutionary process of increasing complexity that involved molecular self-replication self-assembly and eventually the emergence of cell membranes basically that chemicals and molecules slowly became organized into nucleated cells however there are many different theories for exactly how this could have happened for years a prevailing theory known as the primordial soup theory of life was largely based around stanley miller's 1952 experiment that demonstrated that most amino acids can be synthesized from inorganic compounds by sending an electrical charge through a flask of a chemical solution of methane ammonia hydrogen and water scientists propose that an external source of energy like lightning may have triggered these reactions in the early earth however critics of the soup theory point out that there is no sustained source of energy to make inorganic compounds react and without an energy source life as we know it couldn't have come about an opposing theory of life was thus introduced in 1993 by geochemist michael russell from nasa's jet propulsion laboratory he suggested that life came from harnessing the energy gradients that exist when alkaline vent water mixes with more acidic seawater providing the continuous energy source needed the rationale for this line of thinking is that life as we know it is based on the physical compartmentation from the environment where the chemical reactions that allow life to exist happen in a self-contained environment aka inside of cells researchers like russell therefore hypothesized that inorganic matter that had similar attributes of compartmentation could likely be what led to organic life proton gradients across cell walls and membranes to create charge differentials also play an essential role in life this is known as the proton motive force and usually involves a difference of about three ph units across a membrane this is effectively a mechanism to store potential energy that can then be harnessed when protons are allowed to pass through the membrane to phosphorylate adp making atp which is the chemical that provides energy for living cells the precursor to life would similarly need a chemical gradient across a physical boundary for these reasons russell proposed that life could have originated at deep sea hydrothermal vent chimneys if those chimneys had pores that could provide a template for living cells and if there was a three ph unit difference across the thin mineral walls that separate the vent and seawater this energy could allow the reduction of carbon dioxide and production of organic molecules then self-replicating molecules like rna and eventually true cells with their own membranes scientists praised this theory as being hypothetically possible but no such vent had ever been found the ones that had been found were not alkaline in nature and therefore had no chemical gradient that could be harnessed but then in 2000 the missing piece to this puzzle was found at the lost city hydrothermal field located in the middle of the atlantic ocean it was different than the vents that had been found before this one spewed alkaline water the lost city vents differ from the black smoker type event and that they are located several kilometers away from the spreading zones rather than directly upon them because of this the water does not come in close contact with the magma chambers underneath the crust it is instead heated by chemical reactions between sea water and mantle rocks because of this the water is only heated to around 90 degrees celsius on average instead of 400 degrees celsius like in the black smokers additionally because of the mineral makeup of the earth beneath the lost city the vents emit water that is highly alkaline with a ph of around 11. the chimney walls are also full of tiny pores that separate the warm alkaline vent fluid from the cooler acidic seawater the interface between the two create a natural charge gradient scientists realize that this could be the ph gradient and compartmental structure that russell had proposed would be needed to allow life to emerge and while not all scientists agree that life began in a deep-sea hydrothermal system and there are many kinks in the details that need to be worked out this theory of life has big implications for our world and beyond hydrothermal vents have recently been found to exist on other worlds like saturn's moon enceladus a place where conditions might not only allow for life to exist but to begin as well the ocean makes up most of the world's surface and yet we have explored less than twenty percent of it by some estimates and less than one percent by others it may as well be an alien world the first ever photo of a living giant squid was only taken in 2004 and only four people have ever ventured to the bottom of the deepest part of the mariana trench called the challenger deep almost 11 000 meters down for reference 12 people have walked on the moon i think most can relate to the call of the fascinating dark depths of the sea for the amazing things that have been discovered and for what still remains to be seen you can learn more about the fascinating expeditions to the deep and the amazing animals that have been found there by watching deep ocean narrated by david attenborough on curiosity stream curiosity stream is a streaming platform that has thousands of high quality high budget documentaries the deep ocean series explores how researchers are uncovering the secrets of the mariana trench studying newly discovered deep sea animals and their quest to uncover the ocean's most ancient creatures and to make it even better your curiosity stream subscription now also comes with a subscription to nebula the streaming platform made by the best educational content creators like wendover productions tier zoo real life lore and our other channel real engineering nebula is a place that allows creators like us to make exciting original content without worrying about the youtube algorithm or demonetization there are so many episodes and shows being added all the time like city beautiful's new series on the planning of ancient rome that traces the rise of the city that spawned an empire or working titles where different creators break down the intros for their favorite tv series or real engineering's new logistics of d-day series which tracks the strategy and decisions that led to the allies successful invasion of normandy on d-day so if you sign up using the link below you'll get access to all of curiosity stream and all of nebula for just 19.99 a year and be supporting a community of creators that love making new and exciting content [Music] you

Channel: Real Science

Views: 593,956

Keywords: deep sea, hydrothermal vents, ocean, biology, origin of life, science

Id: KAFoRozn6Oc

Length: 12min 59sec (779 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 18 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/aliciam6751]

Amazing 1977

[u/Coolhand2120]

Trying to understand the jump there from "energy can create nucleic acids required for DNA and RNA" to "now we have fully self replicating DNA/RNA". Seems like a big leap that warranted more information. Watched this gif the other day: https://gfycat.com/inferiorinsecurekouprey . It's difficult to believe that something like that just randomly assembled itself. From what I know about physics entropy increases, it doesn't decrease. Are there any papers that describe the mechanism behind how that happened?

[u/obsessivesnuggler]

Very interesting topic. Although they lost me at explaining chemosynthesis.

[u/JSTJED]

This was pleasing to watch. I loved how she explained everything thoroughly & concise. The music was more than exceptional as well. I’m very interested to see what more humans can discover in our deep oceans. Also, the streaming services mentioned at the end are very enlightening which I wouldn’t mind subscribing too. Thanks for this video!