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Patch of clams, bacteria and tubeworms on the seafloor.

Patch of clams, bacteria and tubeworms on the seafloor.
Patch of clams, bacteria and tubeworms on the seafloor.
Patch of clams, bacteria and tubeworms on the seafloor.
Patch of clams, bacteria and tubeworms on the seafloor.
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207479
Lizarralde, Soule, and Seewald
Patch of clams, bacteria and tubeworms on the seafloor.
Still Image
10/30/2009
graphics/Oceanus_v49n3/2009_10_30_03_00_49 copy.jpg
Image Of the Day caption:
This patch of clams, bacteria, and tubeworms was photographed on the ocean bottom in the Gulf of California, where two of Earths tectonic plates are moving apart, further separating the Baja Peninsula from mainland Mexico. The image was one of about 15,000 transmitted in 48 hours from the seafloor to the research vessel Atlantis via a Synchronous Digital Subscriber Line (SDSL) Data-Link telemetry system developed by WHOI engineer Marshall Swartz. The 2008 cruise, led by WHOI volcanologist Adam Soule and geophysicist Dan Lizarralde, found numerous such biological communities, whose bacteria are fed by methane and other gases generated as scorching hot magma pushes up toward the seafloor.
Caption from Oceanus magazine, Vol. 39, no. 3, pg. 50:
Over its 48-hour deployment, the SDSL data-link sent about 15,000 images up the cable. At most of the sites they examined with it, the researchers saw thriving biological communities proof that nutrients were flowing up from the seafloor at those spots. The oases of living things confirmed Lizarraldes hunch that magma was pushing up toward the seafloor far from the spreading center.
Photo courtesy of Dan Lizarralde, Adam Soule, and Jeff Seewald
© Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
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