‘Lost City’ Deep Beneath The Ocean Is Unlike Anything We’ve Seen Before on Earth
5th June 2025
Discovered by scientists in 2000, more than 700 meters (2,300 feet) beneath the surface, the Lost City Hydrothermal Field is the longest-lived venting environment known in the ocean. Nothing else like it has ever been found.
For at least 120,000 years and maybe longer, the upthrusting mantle in this part of the world has reacted with seawater to puff hydrogen, methane, and other dissolved gases out into the ocean.
In the cracks and crevices of the field’s vents, hydrocarbons feed novel microbial communities even without the presence of oxygen.