Salamus reserves in the depths of the Red Sea, fueled by underwater hydrothermal sources, could host extreme life forms.
Salad water bags rich in carbon dioxide could host extreme life forms, and help us understand if there is life even beyond our planet, in the salty ocean under the frozen crust of the Moon of Jupiter Europe. These Salamobic swimming pools have been identified In the seabed of the Red Sea, near two submarine volcanoes who fill them with gas through hydrothermal sources.
The discovery was recently presented in Prague during the Goldschmidt Geochemistry Conference, an important annual meeting for those involved in geochemistry.
Hot and salted water
The water rich in salts and other minerals is particularly dense and sinful towards the seabed. If you meet a volcanic depression It can be collected in a salted swimming pool distinct from the surrounding waterlow in oxygen and full of minerals, the ideal environment for hosting extreme life forms. Salamo reserves of this type have been discovered in several seas, but those just identified in the Red Sea have a special feature: they are hot.
Froukje Van der Zwan, geochimic and volcanologist of the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia, told the discovery of the new type of salami pool, warm and rich in CO2 because it is powered by submarine volcanoes, Close to the top of the submarine volcanoes Hatiba and Mabahissabout a kilometer over the seabed. Different hydrothermal sources have been identified around the water reserves, which emitted water rich in minerals such as zinc and manganese, at a temperature of 60 ° C, and which made the pools warmer than the surrounding water.
Favorable conditions for life
“Unlike other hydrothermal sources, where fluids flow into sea water, here they remain retained in the brine, so perhaps these water bags are a sort of reserve for gases”, such as carbon dioxide and methane, explained Van der Zwan. The analysis of champions taken from these swimming pools will say what forms of proliferus life within them And how they adapted to such an extreme environment.
The energy deriving from the submarine volcanism that comes out in correspondence with the hydrothermal sources feeds very rich biological communities, and in correspondence with nearby hydrothermal fireplaces in the Red Sea, populations of bacteria larger than those normally present under water were found, as well as polymiche and amphipods (a type of crustacean), important, important Components of the underwater food chain.
A clue to seek life elsewhere
It is thought to exist hydrothermal sources active also in the ocean depths under the frozen crust of the Moon of Jupiter Europe, where the data acquired by the James Webb Space Telescope also revealed the presence of carbon dioxide.
Know better how life develops in hot salt water swimming can help us to better understand potential extreme life forms. in other corners of the Solar System.
