Scientists Discover Life Below an Underwater Volcano-Where It's 700 Degrees

Scientists have unearthed a weird and wonderful habitat filled with a variety of strange creatures underneath an undersea volcano.

Found beneath hydrothermal vents on the East Pacific Rise off Central America, the researchers from the Schmidt Ocean Institute, a nonprofit research organization, discovered a new ecosystem teeming with life, including worms and snails.

This unprecedented system was uncovered by scientists aboard the research vessel Falkor, which was exploring hydrothermal vents around 8,200 feet below the surface.

"On land, we have long known of animals living in cavities underground, and in the ocean of animals living in sand and mud, but for the first time, scientists have looked for animals beneath hydrothermal vents," the institute's executive director, Jyotika Virmani, said in a statement.

"This truly remarkable discovery of a new ecosystem, hidden beneath another ecosystem, provides fresh evidence that life exists in incredible places."

Life can thrive even in the most inhospitable places, including hydrothermal vents. These vents, first discovered in 1977 at the East Pacific Ridge, are underwater hot springs that spew out hot, mineral-rich seawater from tectonically active areas.

Temperatures around the vents can reach up to 700 degrees F, and there is no light at all due to their depth. Despite this, chemosynthetic bacteria blooms, and a number of other species, ranging from crabs and worms to octopuses, have been seen living around the vents.

This mission marks the first time that life has been found underneath the vents, however. The organisms were uncovered after an underwater robot, ROV SuBastian, dug into the vent, removing a square of the ocean floor and inserting mesh boxes in its place. Later, the researchers saw a whole new ecosystem beneath the boxes, having come from under the sea floor.

When a new vent forms, it is rapidly colonized by life, the mechanisms of which have remained a mystery until now.

Among the species that they found hidden beneath the vent were tube worm larvae, which are rarely seen above the vents during their larval stage. This led the scientists to theorize that this worm's larvae might travel via vent fluid below the ocean floor.

"Our understanding of animal life at deep-sea hydrothermal vents has greatly expanded with this discovery," Monika Bright, an ecologist at the University of Vienna, Austria, who worked on the mission, said in the statement. "Two dynamic vent habitats exist. Vent animals above and below the surface thrive together in unison, depending on vent fluid from below and oxygen in the seawater from above."

This finding is also hoped to inform decisions about deep-sea mining, which would destroy areas of the ocean floor and the life within.

"The discoveries made on each Schmidt Ocean Institute expedition reinforce the urgency of fully exploring our ocean so we know what exists in the deep sea," Wendy Schmidt, president and co-founder of the institute, said in the statement.

"The discovery of new creatures, landscapes, and now, an entirely new ecosystem underscores just how much we have yet to discover about our ocean—and how important it is to protect what we don't yet know or understand."

The researchers hope to publish their findings in a peer-reviewed journal later this year.

Do you have a tip on a science story that Newsweek should be covering? Do you have a question about hydrothermal vents? Let us know via science@newsweek.com.