Volcanic saltwater pools underwater could be home to extreme life forms

Super-Salty Underwater Lakes kingdom on carbon dioxide could host extreme life forms as opposed to others on Earth.

Water that is rich in salt and other minerals sinks down to the ocean’s trunk due to its density, and if it reaches a depression in the seabed, you can collect in a floating lake that differs from the water above. These saltwater pools are found in many oceans, and their unique chemical make-up-low in oxygen and rich in certain minerals-flavoring them in places where extreme microorganisms can develop and thrive.

Now Froukje van der Zwan at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi -Arabia and her colleagues has discovered a new type of saltwater pool that is hot, rich in carbon dioxide and appears to be fed with volcanoes underwater.

We recently have an expedition to two underwater wizards in the Red Sea, Hatiba Mons and Mabahiss Mons, Van der Zwan and her colleagues found several saltwater pools near the top of the volcanoes, more than a kilometer above the surrounding seabed and 5 kilometers away from any mineral deposits that could increase water’s saline. They also found nearby areas with several hydrothermal winds that released mineral -rich water at approx. 60 ° C (140 ° F).

Sampling using robotic vehicle showed that pools were warmer than the surrounding water and had elevated levels of metal elements such as zinc and manganese.

They were also rich in the gas found by the hydrothermal winds. “They are relatively high in CO2 as well as a methane … But unlike other hydrothermal winds, where the fluids really go in the seawater, they are held here on salt water, so maybe this is the release of a washing for these gases,” Van der Zwan told Goldschmidt Geochemistry Conference in Prague, Czech Republic, July 8.

The researchers are currently analyzing microbial samples taken from the pools to see how life forms can be adapted to the extreme environments. At the nearby hydrothermal ventilation openings, the thick mats containing microbes found much larger than anyone else known in marine around, as well as polychaete worms and amphipodes.

Life in the salty pools can give clues to how life can develop in extreme foreign environments, such as in the salty, iron -rich sea of Jupiter’s moon Europe. There is the sea trap under a thick ice crust, but if there is hydrothermal activity under it, it could present a similar scenario as the iron -rich saltwater pools that Van der Zwan and her team found.