GEOL 1020 Lecture Notes - Lecture 27: Stromatolite, Flatirons, Hadean
7 Dec 2017
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They analyze the gases emitted from modern volcanoes. There was a little bit of it, but not a lot. Beneath the seafloor in fissures (or cracks) along the mid-ocean ridge. Hydrothermal vents chimney like holes along mid-oceanic ridges where dark, sulfur-rich clouds of super hot water are expelled from the ocean floor. Chemosynthetic bacteria (prokaryotes and the most primitive living bacteria, archaea) inhabit hydrothermal vents in the absence of sunlight and oxygen. Archaea consume chemical compounds from hydrothermal vents and use enzymes to speed up the chemical reactions, which release energy used for bacteria"s metabolism. Take nasty cloud of sulfur and produce energy and h2s. Symbiosis: chemosynthetic bacteria live in these animals(cid:1442) tissues and provide a built-in food supply. The hottest temperature where life lives is 120 degrees c. Warm waters at mid-oceanic ridge would have been anoxic, meaning that chemical compounds necessary for life would not be oxidized and destroyed.
