You're going places that nobody's ever been before. Astrobiologist Cindy Van Dover Cindy Lee studies the body shapes of vent animal life. Mussels are her specialty. Members of Bob Vrijenhoek's research group at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in Moss Landing, California, are also on the expedition. Scientists believe that most vent organisms can exist in their adult form only near an active vent site.
Individual vents stay active for anywhere from a few decades to a few thousand years.
When a vent shuts off, the adult animals living there die. Yet as soon as a new vent emerges, it is rapidly colonized. How the organisms move the long distances between vents is a mystery scientists are working to solve. Watch this Quicktime video of a black smoker in action. Most of the research into hydrothermal vent ecosystems has been done in the northern region of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and along the East Pacific Rise, which runs roughly parallel to the west coast of South America.