Books about Hydrothermal from Amazon.com

ALIENS OF THE DEEP "The search for life in space begins on the ocean floor..." Far beneath the ocean's surface, beyond the reach of the sun, an astonishing community of animals lives in a world of searing heat, intense pressure, and absolute darkness. In "Aliens of the Deep," Academy Award-winning filmmaker James Cameron and a crew of scientists embark on an extraordinary mission to document this extreme environment. What they learn about the deep sea may one day help scientists search for life on other worlds. "Aliens of the Deep" takes readers miles below the sea to volcanic hot springs -- hydrothermal vents -- where superheated water flows from Earth's crust into the cold, deep ocean. These vents are surprising oases of life, home to blind crabs, seething hordes of shrimp, reefs of mussels and clams, and swarms of microbes that have found a way to adapt in one of the most unlikely places on the planet. Unknown until 1977 and still largely, unexplored, hydrothermal vent fields support no life-giving photosynthesis. Yet many scientists believe that at sites like these, life on Earth may have begun. Spectacular high-resolution photography brings this breathtaking world into focus: jellyfish that appear to glow from within, hideous-looking anglerfish, and the stunning architecture of the calcite towers of a site dubbed "Lost City." "Aliens of the Deep" asks: If life can survive in this extreme environment on Earth, can the conditions to sustain life exist elsewhere in the universe? Veteran ocean explorer and writer Dr. Joseph MacInnis follows Cameron and his crew as they overcome technical and physical challenges to make a giant-screen film that provides anunprecedented view of this savage and surreal world..
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The books in the highly praised First Books series provide basic facts on subjects in the social studies, the sciences, sports, and practical and fine arts..
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Hydrothermal processes on Earth have played an important role in the evolution of our planet. These processes link the lithosphere, hydrosphere and biosphere in continuously evolving dynamic systems.

Terrestrial hydrothermal processes have been active since water condensed to form the hydrosphere, most probably from about 4.4 Ga. The circulation of hot aqueous solutions, or hydrothermal systems, at and below the Earth’s surface, is driven by magmatic heat. Hydrothermal systems form beneath the oceans (e. g. spreading centres, oceanic plateaux), in lakes, intracontinental rifts, continental margins and magmatic arcs. Hydrothermal fluids can be juvenile-magmatic or derived from seawater, metamorphic, meteoric, connate waters or a mix of two or more of these.

The interaction of hydrothermal fluids with wallrocks and/or the hydrosphere and changes in their composition through time and space, contribute to the formation of a wide range of mineral deposit types and associated wallrock alteration. On Earth, sites of hydrothermal activity support, both at surface and in the subsurface, varied ecosystems based on a range of chemotrophic microorganisms. An intriguing question is whether primitive life is still being created in present-day hydrothermal systems, or did it occur only in the ancient geological past?

This volume will be of interest to scientists and researchers in Geo and Life Sciences departments, as well as to professionals and scientists involved in mining and mineral exploration.

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Scientists have mapped less than 10 percent of the ridge of underwater
mountains in the middle of the Atlantic ocean. It is here that
95 percent of the volcanic activity on earth occurs. And it is also
where the scientist Rich Lutz has tracked the remarkable evolution
of bizarre creatures that spawn in hydrothermal vent fluids that are
poisonous to most other forms of life. How can life exist in this world
of utter darkness?

For Rich Lutz, a pioneer in marine biology, each dive to the frontier
of the deep holds the possibility of discovering more clues that
might help us learn how life on earth began after our planet was
formed billions of years ago..
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Teeming with weird and wonderful life--giant clams and mussels, tubeworms, "eyeless" shrimp, and bacteria that survive on sulfur--deep-sea hot-water springs are found along rifts where sea-floor spreading occurs. The theory of plate tectonics predicted the existence of these hydrothermal vents, but they were discovered only in 1977. Since then the sites have attracted teams of scientists seeking to understand how life can thrive in what would seem to be intolerable or extreme conditions of temperature and fluid chemistry. Some suspect that these vents even hold the key to understanding the very origins of life. Here a leading expert provides the first authoritative and comprehensive account of this research in a book intended for students, professionals, and general readers. Cindy Lee Van Dover, an ecologist, brings nearly two decades of experience and a lively writing style to the text, which is further enhanced by two hundred illustrations, including photographs of vent communities taken in situ.

The book begins by explaining what is known about hydrothermal systems in terms of their deep-sea environment and their geological and chemical makeup. The coverage of microbial ecology includes a chapter on symbiosis. Symbiotic relationships are further developed in a section on physiological ecology, which includes discussions of adaptations to sulfide, thermal tolerances, and sensory adaptations. Separate chapters are devoted to trophic relationships and reproductive ecology. A chapter on community dynamics reveals what has been learned about the ways in which vent communities become established and why they persist, while a chapter on evolution and biogeography examines patterns of species diversity and evolutionary relationships within chemosynthetic ecosystems.

Cognate communities such as seeps and whale skeletons come under scrutiny for their ability to support microbial and invertebrate communities that are ecologically and evolutionarily related to hydrothermal faunas. The book concludes by exploring the possibility that life originated at hydrothermal vents, a hypothesis that has had tremendous impact on our ideas about the potential for life on other planets or planetary bodies in our solar system.

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Describes the 1977 journey of the submersible ship Alvin, in which three explorers saw, for the first time, the strange marine life that dwells in hydrothermal vents and other mysteries of the deep sea..
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