Cold seep

Cold Seep

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Cold seep

A cold seep (sometimes called a cold vent) is an area of the ocean floor where hydrogen sulfide

Hydrogen sulfide

Hydrogen sulfide is the chemical compound with the chemical formula Hydrogen2Sulfur. This colorless, toxic and flammable gas is partially responsible for the foul odor of egg and flatulence....
, methane

Methane

Methane is a chemical compound with the molecular formula . It is the simplest alkane, and the principal component of natural gas. Methane's bond angles are 109.5 degrees....
and other hydrocarbon

Hydrocarbon

In organic chemistry, a hydrocarbon is an organic compound consisting entirely of hydrogen and carbon. With relation to chemical terminology, aromatic hydrocarbons or arenes, alkanes, alkenes and alkyne-based compounds composed entirely of carbon or hydrogen are referred to as "pure" hydrocarbons, whereas other hydrocarbons with bonded com...
-rich fluid seepage occurs, often in the form of a brine pool

Brine pool

Brine pools are large areas of brine on the ocean floor. These pools are bodies of water that have a salinity three to five times greater than the surrounding ocean....
.

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A cold seep (sometimes called a cold vent) is an area of the ocean floor where hydrogen sulfide

Hydrogen sulfide

Methane

Hydrocarbon

Brine pool

Brine pools are large areas of brine on the ocean floor. These pools are bodies of water that have a salinity three to five times greater than the surrounding ocean....
. Cold seeps constitute a biome

Biome

Biomes are Climateally and geographically defined areas of ecologically similar climatic conditions such as Community of plants, animals, and Soil biology, and are often referred to as ecosystems....
supporting several endemic

Endemic

Endemic, in a broad sense, can mean "belonging" or "native to", "characteristic of", or "prevalent in" a particular geography, race, field, area, or Natural environment; native to an area or scope....
species.

Entire communities of light independent organisms - known as extremophile

Extremophile

An extremophile is an organism that thrives in and may even require physically or geochemically extreme environment that are detrimental to the majority of life on Earth....
s - develop in and around cold seeps, most relying on a symbiotic

Symbiosis

The term symbiosis commonly describes close and often long-term interactions between different biological species. The term was first used in 1879 by the Germany mycology Heinrich Anton de Bary, who defined it as "the living together of unlike organisms"....
relationship with chemoautotrophic bacteria. These prokaryotes, both Archaea

Archaea

The Archaea are a group of single-celled microorganisms. A single individual or species from this domain is called an archaeon . Archaea, like bacteria, are prokaryotic....
and Bacteria

Bacteria

The Bacteria are a large group of unicellular microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria have a wide range of shapes, ranging from spheres to rods and spirals....
, process sulfides and methane through chemosynthesis

Chemosynthesis

Chemosynthesis is the biological conversion of one or more carbon molecules and nutrients into organic matter using the oxidation of inorganic molecules or methane as a source of energy, rather than sunlight, as in photosynthesis....
into chemical energy. More complex organisms, such as vesicomyid clams and siboglinid

Siboglinidae

Siboglinidae, also known as the beard worms, is a family of polychaete Annelida whose members made up the former phylum Pogonophora and Vestimentifera....
tube worm

Tube worm

The name tube worm may refer to any of a number of unrelated tube-dwellingworm-like invertebrates.These include chiefly various polychaetes, specifically the Family Siboglinidae , Serpulidae, and related families of the order Canalipalpata....
s use this energy to power their own life processes. In exchange, the microbes are provided with both safety and a reliable source of food. Other microbes form mats that blanket sizable areas.

Cold seeps and hydrothermal vent

Hydrothermal vent

A hydrothermal vent is a fissure vent in a planet's surface from which Geothermal heated water issues. Hydrothermal vents are commonly found near volcano active places, areas where tectonic plates are moving apart, ocean basins, and hotspot ....
s are similar in that they are the only known ecosystems that do not rely on photosynthesis

Photosynthesis

File:Seawifs global biosphere.jpgPhotosynthesis is a metabolic pathway that converts carbon dioxide into organic compounds, especially sugars, using the energy from sunlight....
for food and energy production. Unlike hydrothermal vents which are volatile and ephemeral

Ephemeral

Ephemeral things are transitory, existing only briefly. Typically the term is used to describe objects found in nature, although it can describe a wide range of things....
environments, cold seeps emit at a slow and dependable rate. Likely owing to the cooler temperatures and stability, many cold seep organisms are much longer-lived than those inhabiting hydrothermal vents. Recent research has revealed that the seep tubeworm Lamellibrachia
Lamellibrachia

Lamellibrachia is a genus of tube worms related to the giant tube worm, Riftia pachyptila. It lives at deep-sea cold seeps where hydrocarbons are leaking out of the seafloor....
luymesi may be the longest living noncolonial invertebrate known, with a lifespan between 170 and 250 years.

Cold seeps were discovered in 1984 by Dr. Charles Paull in the Gulf of Mexico

Gulf of Mexico

The Gulf of Mexico is the ninth largest body of water in the world. Considered a smaller part of the Atlantic Ocean, it is an oceanic basin largely surrounded by the North American continent and the island of Cuba....
at a depth of . Since then, seeps have been discovered in other parts of the world's oceans, including the Monterey Canyon

Monterey Canyon

Monterey Canyon, or Monterey Submarine Canyon, is a submarine canyon in Monterey Bay, California. It is the subject of ongoing study by the scientists at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute,the Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, and other oceanography institutions....
just off Monterey Bay, California, the Sea of Japan

Sea of Japan

The Sea of Japan is a marginal sea of the western Pacific Ocean, bordered by Japan, South Korea, North Korea and Russia. It is referred to in North Korea as the Korea East Sea and in South Korea as the East Sea....
, off the Pacific coast of Costa Rica

Costa Rica

Costa Rica, officially the Republic of Costa Rica is a country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Panama to the east and south, the Pacific Ocean to the west and south and the Caribbean Sea to the east....
, in the Atlantic off of Africa

Africa

Africa is the world's second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km? including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area....
, in waters off the coast of Alaska

Alaska

Alaska is the largest U.S. state of the United States by area; it is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait....
, and under an ice shelf

Ice shelf

An ice shelf is a thick, floating platform of ice that forms where a glacier or ice sheet flows down to a coastline and onto the ocean surface....
in Antarctica

Antarctica

Antarctica is Earth's southernmost continent, overlying the South Pole. It is situated in the Antarctica of the southern hemisphere, almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle, and is surrounded by the Southern Ocean....
. The deepest seep community known is found in the Japan trench at a depth of .

Cold seeps develop unique topography over time, where reactions between methane and seawater create carbonate

Carbonate

In chemistry, a carbonate is a salt or ester of carbonic acid....
rock formations and reefs. These reactions may also be dependent on bacterial activity. Ikaite

Ikaite

Ikaite is the mineral name for the hexahydrate of calcium carbonate, CaCO3?6H2O. Ikaite is colorless when pure....
, a hydrous calcium carbonate, can be associated with oxidizing methane at cold seeps.

Cold seep deposits are found throughout the Phanerozoic rock record, especially in the Late Mesozoic and Cenozoic (see for an example, Kaim et al., 2008). These fossil cold seeps are characterized by mound-like topography (where preserved), coarsely-crystalline carbonates, and abundant mollusks and brachiopods.

Cold seep

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