Scientists keep peeling back new layers of life on our planet like a seemingly endless onion.
Underneath the seafloor of this well-studied site, the international team of researchers found veins of subsurface fluids swimming with life that has never been seen before.
"This truly remarkable discovery of a new ecosystem, hidden beneath another ecosystem, provides fresh evidence that life exists in incredible places.".
Scientists only discovered hydrothermal vents, which gush hot, mineral-rich fluids in the deep ocean, in the 1970s.
In the past 46 years of research, however, no one had ever thought to peer beneath the ocean's hot springs.
Stripping back the seafloor's shell has now revealed a colorful ecosystem of worms, snails, and chemosynthetic bacteria, which don't rely on sunlight but on minerals for energy.
These deep-sea creatures seem to travel underneath the seafloor through volcanic fluids to colonize new habitats. »
