Just a heads-up on a term I heard this morning in a radio interview with an oceanographer who dives on Alvin. She explained that vent animals on the ocean floor are able to live due to a process called chemosynthesis in which the organisms digest chemicals. The vents effuse sulfates of some type and the organisms--including white worms two meters long that have bright red gills--are able to digest these sulfates due to the activity of some kind of bacteria indwelling the (in this case) worms. She also mentioned clams the size of dinner plates and shrimp that tasted like sulfur--quite disgusting.

Imagine the power of life! Life from noxious chemicals that would surely kill you and me.