Lost City: Where Crust Meets Mantle

An anonymous reader writes "Track two-dozen oceanographers on their one-month expedition to the Lost City, submersed off the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Since up to a third of the planet's total biomass may live below 100 meters, one goal is to see if microbes can survive without volcanic heat--instead living off the heat of a limestone rock reaction where the crust meets the mantle. After 15 years of dormancy, this is also rumored to be the script line of the fourth Indiana Jones installment."

Comments

hmmm...

[pyr0]

It's pretty cool that they found these hydrothermal vents, but the concept of fluids circulating deep down into the basement rock...even to the mantle...and then being re-circulated back up when heated is not new. This is the basic principle behind the formation of certain types of ore deposits.

I suppose the big thing with this discovery is the occurrence of life down there in the absence of extreme volcanic heat and not the presence of the vents themselves.