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Science 16 March 1979:
Vol. 203. no. 4385, pp. 1073 - 1083
DOI: 10.1126/science.203.4385.1073
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Articles

Submarine Thermal Sprirngs on the Galápagos Rift

John B. Corliss 1, Jack Dymond 1, Louis I. Gordon 1, John M. Edmond 2, Richard P. von Herzen 3, Robert D. Ballard 3, Kenneth Green 3, David Williams 4, Arnold Bainbridge 5, Kathy Crane 5, and Tjeerd H. van Andel 6

1 School of Oceanography, Oregon State University, Corvallis 97331
2 Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge 02139
3 Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, Massachusetts 02543
4 U.S. Geological Survey, Federal Center, Denver, Colorado 80225
5 Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, California 92037
6 Department of Geology and Geophysics, Standford University, Stanford, California 94305

The submarine hydrothermal activity on and near the Galápagos Rift has been explored with the aid of the deep submersible Alvin. Analyses of water samples from hydrothermal vents reveal that hydrothermal activity provides significant or dominant sources and sinks for several components of seawater; studies of conductive and convective heat transfer suggest that two-thirds of the heat lost from new oceanic lithosphere at the Galápagos Rift in the first million years may be vented from thermal springs, predominantly along the axial ridge within the rift valley. The vent areas are populated by animal communities. They appear to utilize chemosynthesis by sulfur-oxidizing bacteria to derive their entire energy supply from reactions between the seawater and the rocks at high temperatures, rather than photosynthesis.


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