First photograph of the world’s deepest black smoker.

British scientists have released photos and videos of the world’s deepest known underwater volcanic vents in the Cayman Trough. 

Using a deep-diving, remote-controlled submarine, scientists on board the Royal Research Ship James Cook have photographed and filmed the vents, known as ‘black smokers’, which lie 3.1 miles down the Trough. 

Leader of the research programme Dr. Jon Copley said they had found “slender spires made of copper and iron ores on the seafloor, erupting water hot enough to melt lead, deeper than anyone has seen before”. 

The vents, located about 60 miles south of Grand Cayman, are undersea springs that blast superheated water from the ocean floor.  They were first seen in the Pacific 30 years ago, but most are found between one and two miles deep.  

"It was like wandering across the surface of another world," said geologist Bramley Murton of the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton, who piloted the HyBIS underwater vehicle around the world's deepest volcanic vents for the first time. "The rainbow hues of the mineral spires and the fluorescent blues of the microbial mats covering them were like nothing I had ever seen before. 

"Seeing the world's deepest black smoker vents looming out of the darkness was awe-inspiring," said Dr. Copley, a marine biologist at the University of Southampton’s School of Ocean and Earth Science. "Superheated water was gushing out of their two-storey high mineral spires, more than three miles beneath the waves.” 

Scientists are interested in exploring the vents because of the possibility of finding creatures of the deep that have never been seen before. 

The scalding water that gushes from the deep-sea vents nourishes lush colonies of marine life. 

According to the scientists, studying life-forms that thrive in such hostile environments provides insights into patterns of marine life around the world, the possibility of life on other planets, and even how life on Earth began. 

Dr. Copley, in an email to the Caymanian Compass from the TSS James Cook, said the team had found some deep sea species around the vents, but they are keeping those findings under wraps until they complete a scientific paper and until the data is checked by other scientists in the field. 

The existence of sea life so deep is even more extraordinary given that the pressure at the bottom of the Trough is the equivalent to that of a large family car pushing down on every square inch of those creatures – or 500 times the normal atmospheric pressure. 

The team is using a robot submarine called Autosub6000, developed by engineers at the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton, to survey the seafloor of the Cayman Trough in unprecedented detail.  They then launched another deep-sea vehicle called HyBIS, developed by team member Bramley Murton and Berkshire-based engineering company Hydro-Lek Ltd, to film the world's deepest vents for the first time. 

The expedition is being closely followed by the public in Cayman, Dr. Copley said.  “According to our expedition website stats, the Cayman Islands have been following us avidly... We've also enjoyed having questions from people in the Cayman Islands via the website," he said. 

The researchers will now compare the marine life in the abyss of the Cayman Trough with that known from other deep-sea vents, to understand the web of life throughout the deep ocean.  They will also study the chemistry of the hot water gushing from the vents, and the geology of the undersea volcanoes where these vents are found, to understand the fundamental geological and geochemical processes that shape the world. 

"We hope our discovery will yield new insights into biogeochemically important elements in one of the most extreme naturally occurring environments on our planet," said geochemist and expedition leader Doug Connelly of the National Oceanography Centre, who is the principal scientist on board the ship. 

The expedition set out from Port of Spain, Trinidad, on 24 March. As well as the scientists and researchers on board, there are also students from the UK, Ireland, Germany and Trinidad. 

"This expedition has been a superb opportunity to train the next generation of marine scientists at the cutting edge of deep-sea research," said marine biologist Paul Tyler of the School of Ocean and Earth Science, who heads the international Census of Marine Life Chemosynthetic Ecosystems programme. 

The team will continue to explore the depths of the Cayman Trough until 20 April. 

Daily updates of the expedition’s findings and activities can be found on its website www.thesearethevoyages.net, including photos and videos.