The scientists on board the RRS James Cook found the vent more than three miles beneath the surface of the Caribbean in an area known as the Cayman Trough, a deep-sea canyon which was the setting for James Cameron’s underwater thriller “The Abyss”.

Volcanic vents are networks of small cracks which penetrate deep into the earth’s crust, where temperatures can reach up to 750 degrees Fahrenheit. Sea water seeps into the openings, where it becomes heated to extreme temperatures and sent out into the icy cold of the deep ocean. Minerals precipitate as the water cools, creating an effect like towering chimneys of smoke. The pressure, 500 times stronger than the earth’s atmosphere, keeps the water from boiling.

The leader of the research project, Jon Copley said it has been theorized that life may have originated in similar environments early in the planet’s history; microorganisms found in deep-sea vents appear close to some of the Earth’s oldest organisms:

“The origins of life is one of the greatest unanswered questions in science, and at the moment vents are one of the contenders, but they are certainly not the only one.”

Furthermore:

“We know more about the surface of the Moon and Mars than we do about our own planet because two-thirds of our planet is covered by ocean making it very hard to explore…We’ve only seen a tiny fraction of the deep sea floor so there are undoubtedly many more vents and other amazing things to discover.”

This might be a good time to pay a visit. But be careful.

Gregory Colbert’s Ashes and Snow is an ongoing project that weaves together photographic works, 35mm films, art installations and a novel in letters. With profound patience and an unswerving commitment to the expressive and artistic nature of animals, he has captured extraordinary interactions between humans and animals.

Since its debut in Venice in 2002, over 10 million people have attended Ashes and Snow by Gregory Colbert, an exhibition of more than 50 large-scale photographic artworks, a 60-minute feature film, and two 9-minute film haiku. The Nomadic Museum, the permanent travelling home of Ashes and Snow, debuted in New York in 2005 and then migrated to Santa Monica, Tokyo, and Mexico City. Ashes and Snow at the Nomadic Museum will open in Brazil in 2009.

To date, Ashes and Snow has received over 10 million visitors in 4 continents, making it the most attended exhibition by a living artist in history.

Follow the link to this page to see the Earth and the Moon as seen from Mars. It is quite amazing.

For some reason, I thought the moon should be located much closer to the Earth. Intuitively, it doesn’t make sense — for me anyway — that the moon seems so large when it is so far away.