In the depths of the sea

 In the depths of the sea 

In the depths of the sea 

In February 1977, an unmanned aerial vehicle "Elon" sailed into the depths of the ocean. Three scientists were on board. 

Such a small vehicle that the three of them could not spread their arms, but so strong that it could easily reach extraordinary depths. Their destination was at the junction of two tectonic plates, two hundred and fifty miles north of the Galapagos Islands, where the two plates drifted away like angry ex-lovers. Their separation was splitting the earth's crust. She hoped to see something new for the first time. Hydrothermal vent. Volcanic eruptions in the ocean floor where water is at extremely high temperatures.

Elon's team began to descend. The blueness of the surface began to change to ink. Then there was the pitch black, darker than any ink. Somewhere somewhere a living creature glows like a firefly or the light of this car turns on. 2400 meters below the surface, the team really found what their model had predicted. And something else, which was quite unexpected.

Life and countless lives. So much so that the place was named "Rose Garden"

Groups of crabs and shellfish clinging to smoky rocks. White prawns and clams like ghosts. Floating fish and the strangest white tubes with large ketchup. Lipstick of this shape should be more open.

The sun does not shine in this place, the temperature reaches four hundred degrees Celsius. There is tremendous water pressure, Elon's team discovered as diverse an ecosystem as a rainforest. It was so unexpected for them that they did not even bring a biologist with them. All three were geologists. Gathered some creatures from here and went back.

One of them was a tubeworm found by Meredith Jones of the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. Jones became so curious that two years later, in 1979, he went to collect them himself. This creature called Riftia pachyptila was bigger than any worm. So tall that it was as tall as Jones himself. And weird? He had no mouth, no stomach, no intestines? If it didn't eat anything then how was it alive?

Jones noted a mysterious organ called trophosome. Half the weight of this organ. It was filled with pure sulfur crystals. Jones mentioned this during a lecture at Harvard University. Among the audience was Colin Kiwana, a young zoologist. An idea flashed through Trophosom's mind. He said that this trophosome and sulfur would somehow be related to the way it was made into energy and that it should be associated with another microscopic organism. Jones gave Colin Kwana a worm to study

Kwana was not only right, but he had a revolutionary idea. Under the microscope, they saw that the trophosome was full of bacteria. From one billion bacteria per gram. This organ contained enzymes that could process sulfide. Hydrogen sulfide is common in this underwater environment. Kwana combined the two to suggest that these enzyme-producing bacteria were using a method of extracting energy from them that was not known at the time.

Life and countless lives

The sun is running the cycle of life on earth. Plants, algae and some bacteria use this energy to make food for themselves. Make sugars from carbon dioxide and water. This process of converting inorganic matter into organic matter is called carbon fixing. Photosynthesis to do this through the sun. All the food we know. Every tree and flower, vulture and eagle, whether we or an ant, ultimately depends on the same way of obtaining solar energy. This is not an option in the depths of the sea. Organic matter ever coming from above is not enough for such a long life, something else is needed. This was "something else" for the bacteria found inside the raftia, the sulfides emanating from these volcanic craters. These bacteria oxidize them and fix carbon by taking energy from them. This process is chemosynthesis. The process of making your food from chemical energy instead of solar energy. Just as the separating matter for plants is oxygen, the waste material in this process is pure sulfur and the same yellow crystals were present in this organ of the worm.

These big worms don't have to eat anything. The microscopic creatures that live in them are responsible for their food.

It is not the only organism that relies on chemosynthesis. Many animals use their methane or sulfide to fix carbon for their food. Many of them are in these hot mouths. In many cold mouths, where the same chemical is released but at a slower rate. Many creatures in this place are alive on the food coming from above. For example, there is a worm whose specialty is dead whales falling from above.

When life began, it could not get energy from the sun. These are the places where water and energy needs are met. Life was born out of these smoky volcanic eruptions. Simple and delicate life whose energy game started with chemosynthesis.

The germs of those ancestors were then increasingly adapted to a colorful and beautiful life. Went to the shallower waters of the ocean. Out of these complex animals were born. Spread over the seas and on land. Then some of them turned back to the same waters. The worms had their ancestors in shallow water, but they returned and formed an alliance with the ancient inhabitants, the microbes. These microbes have been masters here. He gave them a place to live and gave them energy work.

The way things started, continues. Here the animals have reached the return trip of the cycle of evolution.