Schweppe Lecture Series

Dr. Stacy Kim

Wednesday, January 29, 2002, 7:00 PM, Visitor Center Auditorium

Hydrothermal Vents: Archipelagos of Life on the Deep Sea Floor

Hydrothermal vents are oases of abundant life in the deep sea, where seawater that is modified by contact with magma provides energy to sustain unique ecosystems. Vents are distributed like archipelagos across the deep seafloor, and each vent persists for only a limited time before volcanic events or earthquakes restructure the seafloor. Vent organisms can only survive near hydrothermal vents and many are attached to the seafloor and unable to move as adults.  Thus, a central question in vent ecology has been how do these species survive despite the temporary and shifting nature of the vent habitat?

Most bottom-dwelling marine organisms have a larval stage that drifts in the water column before settling to the seafloor and becoming an adult.  These larvae usually have a lifespan of only a few days and swim too slowly to move against currents. Moving with the slow currents found near the seafloor, typical larvae would not be able to travel from one vent to the next before dying.  Larvae of vent species, however, have extended lifespans and can ride the buoyant plumes of warm water that rise above vents.  This “elevator” takes them above the seafloor where currents are faster and the larvae can be transported over much longer distances.  

Dr. Stacy Kim is a benthic ecologist and adjunct professor at the Moss Landing Marine Laboratories in Moss Landing, California, where she has worked since 1996. She received her Ph.D. in Biological Oceanography from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Her research has taken her from Antarctica to the Arctic Ocean, and from coastal regions to the deep sea, where she studies the organisms that live at mid-ocean ridge hot springs. Her research is focused on the role of disturbance in structuring communities.

The free lecture will be held at 7 p.m. in the Visitor Center of the University of Texas Marine Science Institute in Port Aransas, and the public is invited to attend. Dr. Kim's visit to the Marine Science Institute is part of the Laura Randall Schweppe Endowed Lecture Series in Marine Science.