'Oases of life’ find on ocean floor by team

Press, 22 June 1985, Page 12

'Oases of life’ find on ocean floor by team

NZPA-AP Paris The French exploration submarine Nautile has found “oases of life” on the seabed 4000 m deep in the Pacific off Japan, French scientists say.

A communique from the Institute for Research and Exploitation of The Sea said the “oases... sometimes animal nurseries,” had been studied and photographed, and samples taken.

It described them as colonies of molluscs, mussels and giant worms, and said they lived along rifts in the sea floor, apparently nourished by water pushed up from inside the sea floor sediments. Similar colonies were already known along midocean ridges around seafloor hot water springs, and another colony was found last year off the coast of Oregon, living on methane

gas and relatively cold sedimentary water. The new discovery off Japan, indicates that “this phenomenon is much more widespread than had been supposed.” It said scientists believed the sedimentary water off Japan also contained methane, which nourishes bacteria which provide food for bivalves and other animals. Investigation of water samples is continuing. It said the first eight dives of the Nautile had shown it to be “a remarkable scientific tool” and that the data collected was far from, being completely evaluated. The scientists also observed the seismic and tectonic movement in the region, where current theory says “plates” of the Earth’s surface meet east and south of Japan. ,