Jakarta –
Chinese researchers found a giant hydrothermal system that was previously unknown at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. This finding has the potential to be scientifically able to explain the origin of life.
The Kunlun system, in the northeast of Papua New Guinea, consists of 20 large craters, the largest has a width of around 1,800 meters and a depth of 130 meters. These craters gather together, nicknamed ‘herd pipes’, and release hydrogen in large quantities, which can be a source of life there.
Kunlun is similar to the Atlantic hydrothermal field in the underwater mountains of the Massif Atlantis. However, Kunlun has several unique features, including extraordinary size. Kunlun includes an area of 11 square kilometers, making it hundreds of times bigger than in Atlantic.
SCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT
The Kunlun system offers new window scientists into deep sea serpentinization, which is a process in which sea water reacts chemically with coat rocks under the seabed to create serpentin minerals and release hydrogen.
The researchers hope to study the potential relationship between hydrogen emissions and the emergence of life in Kunlun. Quoted from Live Science, this system is thought to have hydrogen -rich liquids similar to the chemical environment of ancient earth.
“The most interesting is its ecological potential. We observe a variety of deep marine life that develops rapidly here, shrimp, squat lobster, anemone, and tube worms, species that may depend on chemosynthesis with hydrogen -fueled,” said Weidong Sun, professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Oceanology.
Sunlight does not reach the deep sea, so life on the seabed cannot be photosynthesis. Therefore, some life in the sea depends on chemosynthesis, which involves the use of chemicals such as hydrogen as a source of energy to make food.
The separate Chinese research team recently also used manned submarines to record the chemosynthetic-based community at the bottom of the West Pacific Ocean, at a depth of 9,500 m. Such communities are rarely documented and studied.
In this new study, the researchers used the same submarine to map kunlun and explore the four biggest craters. “The kunlun system stands out because of its extraordinarily high hydrogen flux, scale, and geological conditions are unique,” Sun said.
(FYK / FYK)
