Definition. A white smoker is a hydrothermal vent emitting alkaline high-pH hydrothermal fluid on the ocean floor. These fluids are cooler (260–300°C) than those emitted by black smokers (360°C) and are sited away, or “off-axis,” from the mid-ocean ridges.

“White smokers” are chimneys formed from deposits of barium, calcium, and silicon, which are white. A venting black smoker emits jets of particle-laden fluids. The particles are predominantly very fine-grained sulfide minerals formed when the hot hydrothermal fluids mix with near-freezing seawater.

Hydrothermal vents are often divided into two types: ‘black smokers’ and ‘white smokers’.

When it comes in contact with cold ocean water, many minerals precipitate, forming a black, chimney-like structure around each vent. White smoker vents emit lighter-hued minerals, such as those containing barium, calcium and silicon.

The black “smoke” is caused the presence of iron and sulfur, which combine to become iron monosulfide, which has a black color. When the iron monosulfide solidifies, it created the black chimneys. “White smokers” are the cooler cousins of black smokers. These vents release cooler water then “black smokers”.

Hydrothermal vents support unique ecosystems and their communities of organisms in the deep ocean. They help regulate ocean chemistry and circulation. They also provide a laboratory in which scientists can study changes to the ocean and how life on Earth could have begun.

Within the hydrothermal vents are seafloor massive sulfides (SMS), whereby the vents create sulfide deposits containing valuable metals such as silver, gold, manganese, cobalt, and zinc.

These scientists located and sampled water from active hydrothermal vents at 2000 meters depth. Part of the reason it took so long to find them is because hydrothermal vents are quite small (~50 meters across) and are usually found at depths of 2000 m or more.

Hydrothermal vents are home to many kinds of animals, including tubeworms, crabs, mussels, and zoarcid fish. The octopus is one of the top predators in hydrothermal vent ecosystems. Most hydrothermal vents on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge don’t have tubeworms, but they do have shrimp, many of which host symbiotic bacteria.

Many scientists think life got its start around 3.7 billion years ago in deep-sea hydrothermal vents.

The floor of the deep ocean is almost devoid of life, because little food can be found there. But around hydrothermal vents, life is abundant because food is abundant. These vents are the only places on Earth where the ultimate source of energy for life is not sunlight but the inorganic Earth itself.

184 hydrothermal vents

They become inactive when seafloor-spreading moves them away from the rising magma or when they become clogged. Some vent fields may remain active for 10,000 years, but individual vents are much shorter-lived.

A vent will remain active for usually one or two years. Under the sea, hydrothermal vents can form features called black smokers and white smokers.

Hydrothermal vents act as natural plumbing systems that transport heat and chemicals from the interior of the Earth and that help regulate global ocean chemistry. In the process, they accumulate vast amounts of potentially valuable minerals on the seafloor.

Learning about these organisms can teach us about the evolution of life on Earth and the possibility of life elsewhere in the solar system and the universe. Many previously unknown metabolic processes and compounds found in vent organisms could also have commercial uses one day.

Active hydrothermal vents can yield information and provide goods for natural and human benefit. Mining them could mean forgoing new scientific information and future applications that could benefit humankind. Active vents demonstrate the viability of ecosystems largely independent of photosynthesis.

One-fifth of all known hydrothermal vents are threatened by deep-sea mining

• Tube worms and anemones on the Galapagos Rift.
• Anemones, Snails, Shrimp, and Bacterial Mats at the Beebe/Piccard Hydrothermal Vent Field, Mid-Cayman Spreading Center.

Take a look at the top 10 ocean issues:

• Plastics.
• Trash.
• Pollution.
• Overexploitation of Fishing Resources.
• Unsustainable Aquaculture.
• Marine Engineering and Oil Drilling.
• Destruction of Habitats.
• Ocean Acidification and Coral Bleaching.

Ocean Pollution from runoff of chemical fertilizers is result in ocean dead zones. Burning of Fossil Fuels has resulted in excess nitrogen that is also killing deep sea creatures. As the temperatures of the ocean are rising, the amount of dissolved oxygen is decreasing, making it pretty hard for the organisms to live.

Hydrothermal vents provide both a thermocline and a chemocline; the areas closer to the vent are both hotter and more chemically rich, while areas further from the vent are cooler and less chemically rich.

The deep-sea hydrothermal vents are located along the volcanic ridges and are characterized by extreme conditions such as unique physical properties (temperature, pression), chemical toxicity, and absence of photosynthesis. In these environments many microorganisms are adapted to high temperatures.

The thermocline, separates hot, and cold water. In the deep sea hot water flows at the hydrothermal vents. A hydrothermal vent is hot magma heating the ocean. Its hot in the deep sea where hydrothermal vents are, but most of the water in the deep ocean is cold and that’s how the thermocline works.

The pycnocline encompasses both the halocline (salinity gradients) and the thermocline (temperature gradients)refers to the rapid change in density with depth. Because density is a function of temperature and salinity, the pycnocline is a function of the thermocline and halocline.

100 meters

epipelagic zone

The ocean is divided into five zones: the epipelagic zone, or upper open ocean (surface to 650 feet deep); the mesopelagic zone, or middle open ocean (650-3,300 feet deep); the bathypelagic zone, or lower open ocean (3,300-13,000 feet deep); the abyssopelagic zone, or abyss (13,000-20,000 feet deep); and the …

The sunlight zone, the twilight zone, the midnight zone, the abyss and the trenches.

• Sunlight Zone. This zone extends from the surface down to about 700 feet.
• Twilight Zone. This zone extends from 700 feet down to about 3,280 feet.
• The Midnight Zone.
• The Abyssal Zone.
• The Trenches.

There are three main ocean zones based on distance from shore. They are the intertidal zone, neritic zone, and oceanic zone.

Pacific Ocean