Where are hydrothermal vents found on the seafloor?
Hydrothermal vents occur along the mid-ocean-ridge, but not continuously along a ridge. You have a network of habitats, like they way you have Miami, Washington, D.C., and Boston along Interstate 95. Different types of species are found only in certain places. So along the East Pacific Rise, (the mid-ocean ridge in the eastern Pacific Ocean), and along South America, down from Galápagos Islands, we find areas dominated by tubeworms, large clams, and mussels. But if we go up north, off of the coast of Oregon and Washington, the ridge has a different species of tubeworms than what we see in southern Pacific, and a notable lack of mussels. In Atlantic Ocean vent sites, it’s completely different. We don’t see any tubeworms. The Atlantic is dominated by huge swarms of shrimp. If we go to the western Pacific, those vent sites over there are dominated by different species of hairy gastropods—those are large snails. So one of the vexing questions we’ve had for a long time is what causes and ma
