KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) — Researchers steering a remote-controlled submarine around the world's deepest known hydrothermal vents have collected numerous samples from sunless depths of the Caribbean Sea where blazing hot, mineral-rich fluid gushes from volcanic chimneys that look like gnarled tree stumps.
Jon Copley, chief scientist for the expedition of Britain's National Oceanography Centre, said yesterday that he believes that laboratory analysis in the coming months will reveal some new life forms that have evolved in the pitch-black vent areas of the Cayman Trough, more than three miles (five kilometres) below the sea's surface between the Cayman Islands and Jamaica.
"From body form alone I am confident that we have found several new species on this expedition: probably a new species of sea anemone, a few species of bristle worms, and some small crustaceans," Copley said in an email from the RRS James Cook research ship.