The researchers of theInstitute of Oceanology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Iocas) have discovered a huge hydrothermal field on the backdrop ofWestern Pacific Ocean. It is about 80 km west of the Mussou Fossaon the Caroline lithospheric plaque, north of New Guinea. The field, called KunlunAnd extended over 11 km²100 times more than the well -known hydrothermal field of Lost City discovered in 2000 in the Atlantic, and is consisting of 20 circular depressions in diameter even greater than 1 km and which can exceed 100 m depth. Here the water of the sea penetrates the fractures of the rocks and reacts with the minerals of the cloak, freeing hydrogen which then comes out on the seabed. Kunlun produces Huge hydrogen emissions: the discovery is important because it is believed that this element on the seabed has favored the birth of life on earth and because the natural hydrogen produced by geological mechanisms is one potential source of clean energy.
The characteristics of the Kunlun hydrothermal field
The area object of the searches is in one subduction areain which the Caroline oceanic plate sink under the Pacific oceanic plate. The subduction caused the formation of the Mussou Fossanot very far from the best known Fossa delle Marianne. In the area the exploration of the seabed took place through ships equipped with Ecoscandaglitools that allow to reconstruct their morphology, and with the submarine Fendouzhe.
Were thus identified 20 circular depressions With steep walls and flat background, the diameter of which ranges from 450 to 1800 deep from 30 to 130 m. These “craters” are distributed on one area detected300 m high compared to the seabed. The research focused on four particularly deep depressions, where large quantities of rocky fragments. These fragments testify to the fact that the depressions originated due to violent explosions.
How the Kunlun depressions formed were formed
To generate the explosions that created the craters was thehydrogen present under the seabed of the subduction areas. The sinking of the Caroline plaque under that of the peaceful origin deepens fault through which sea water infiltrates. The water reaches the coatwhere in the presence of high temperature and pressure, it reacts chemically with the olivina that constitutes its rocks. During the process, called serpentinein contact with water the ilivine iron oxidizes e free hydrogen.
After the main explosion, other minor hydrogen explosions take place, followed by flows of hydrothermal fluids (hot waters rich in metals in solution) that come out of fractures by depositing minerals. The peculiarity of the Kunlun hydrothermal field is his particularly high annual hydrogen flowestimated at 4.8 × 1011 Mol/year, which constitutes at least 5% of the global manufacturer of abiotic hydrogen from all submarine sources. The site shows that the generation of hydrogen for serpentinization can also take place far from the ocean dorsals, unlike what was once considered. Studying the emissions of this gas on the seabed is essential to understand what its role could be in the future as Source of clean energy.
Hydrogen and the origin of life
The Kunlun website, despite the great depth that characterizes it, presents anhuge biodiversity: here there are shrimp, anemones, crabs and tube worms. Hydrogen is believed to be at the origin of life on earth. In this type of environments, the hydrogen generated in depth, going up through fractures would have constituted one source of energy for the first microorganisms. Even today in these environments, primordial microbial communities are found which testify to the key role that this gas may have had in the origin of life on Earth, but also on other planets.
