The deep sea has long been likened to a terrestrial desert. In some ways the analogy is useful, writes marine biologist Cindy Lee Van Dover, for the oceanic floor, like many arid regions of the earth, is low in biomass. She adds, "What life there is, though, is remarkably diverse, " sometimes numbering hundreds of species in a single square meter of mud. That deep-sea
diversity is nowhere more pronounced than in the thermal vents that often occur where tectonic plates meet, marked by great lava fields and even active volcanoes (three-quarters of which are underwater). Located, among other places, along the great mountain ridges of the Laurentian Abyss and the Marianas Trench, these vents…
I had the pleasure of
sailing with Cindy van Dover during 1985's Argo-RISE
expedition to the Galapagos Rift. She probably recalls that I spent much of that oceanographic expedition annoying everyone… I'm a biochemist who has started to work in the area of vent microbiology, and this book has served as an essential reference of vent ecology and basic vent geology for me - an excellent, readable…
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