Mid Cayman Rise Archives

NCLDV community composition across geographically-distinct hydrothermal vents. t-SNE (t-Distributed Stochastic Neighbor Embedding) ordination plot based on the normalized Q2Q3 coverages of 279 NCLDV contigs across reads from 6 geographically-distinct vent locations. The interquartile coverage of each NCLDV contig was normalized to the lowest library size of metagenomic samples. Each dot represents one metagenomic sample and the color of the dot indicates the vent location. Parentheses indicate the type of vent environment: d (diffuse fluid), h (hydrothermal fluid), p (plume), sed (sediment), and s (sulfide deposit) -- biorxiv.org

The Biogeography Of Hydrothermal Vent Giant Viruses Across Earth’s Global Ocean

by Keith CowingOctober 25, 2026October 25, 2026

[biorxiv.org] Viruses are the most abundant known biological entities in the ocean and play central role in microbial ecology. However, the patterns and drivers of their biogeographic distribution across global […]

An international research team has discovered a new high-temperature hydrothermal vent field that hosts several 10- to 15-meter-tall actively venting chimney clusters. Scientists located the vent field in the Pacific Ocean off the Western Galápagos Islands utilizing state-of-the-art mapping technologies not often used in scientific exploration. Larger image — Schmidt Ocean Institute

Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biophysics, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Extremeophiles and Extreme Environments, Status Report

Evaluating Serpentinization as a Source of Phosphite to Microbial Communities in Hydrothermal Vents

by Keith CowingApril 4, 2025April 4, 2025

Previous studies have documented the presence of phosphite, a reduced and highly soluble form of phosphorus, in serpentinites, which has led to the hypothesis that serpentinizing hydrothermal vents could have […]