Taiwan: Hot acid springs from the sea floor, the secret of which is not understood until now
Above the water, Turtle Island is a popular and beautiful tourist attraction. But there’s one thing that’s underwater and it’s fascinating scientists.
The first thing that attracted me was the smell.
The pungent smell of rotten eggs was evidence that beneath our boat lay a forest on the ocean floor from which a sulphurous volcano was constantly spewing gases, like an energetic marine hot spring.
The smell was all the more surprising given our location, for nearby but in the distance stretched a jungle-covered volcanic island, while between us and the murky shore lay a beautiful stretch of turquoise water that was the ocean. was very different from the dull blue colors of the rest of the
M was circling Turtle Island (Goshen Dao in Chinese) about 12 kilometers off the northeast coast of Taiwan. It is one of only two active volcanoes in Taiwan and is about seven thousand years old. The volcano is quite young for the age of the island. It is a popular tourist attraction, famous for its turtle-shaped hasulas, photogenic cliffs, military tunnels and dolphin antics off the coast.
But this patch of shallow water on the eastern side of the island looks like a turtle poking its head out of the sea, and it’s a curiosity for scientists and Instagrammers alike.
It has been nicknamed Malki Si, the Naval Galaxy, which is both beautiful and dangerous at the same time. Its attractive color attracts photographers, but beneath the surface lies warm and acidic water. The pH value of the water here is the lowest of all naturally occurring waters in the world’s oceans, meaning it is highly acidic, a mystery that scientists still do not fully understand. has come.
There are dozens of small chimney-like hydrothermal vents or vents called fumaroles that spew out toxic gases and heavy metals, littering the ocean floor.
Turtle Island’s holes are like a natural laboratory because not only are they close to shore, but they’re also shallow. Many of them are less than 14 meters below sea level, and are therefore accessible sites for study by marine scientists.
‘The underwater scene looks like it’s from another world,’ explains Dr Mario Liberato. Dr. Mario has conducted research here for ten years (2009 to 2018) with Taiwanese and Chinese researchers led by the Institute of Geosciences at the University of Kiel, Germany, and has dived here dozens of times.
‘There are heavy metals, it’s acidic, and you see lots of bubbles mixed with lots of noise and constant temperature changes,’ he says.
He said that the water here comes out of the sea vents at about 100 degrees Celsius, but gets cooled quickly by mixing with the surrounding seawater. He added: ‘It is quite stressful, especially as the noise from the femurs is so loud that it can be deafening. You are most vulnerable.’
Such a hostile environment is believed to be similar to the conditions when life first emerged on Earth. And studying the animals that evolved to survive in the Milky Way galaxy may give us some clues about early life 3.5 billion years ago.
“We may not necessarily be looking for anything to explain the origin of life, but it is possible that such extreme conditions may provide some clues as to how life evolved in the first few hundred thousand years,” Librato explained. Go, it might resemble a place like Turtle Island.’
“What we’re looking for is what kind of creatures can survive in that kind of environment, how they’re able to do that, and how little diversity they have,” he added.
So what is here at the bottom of the sea?
With a straight hole, there’s not much. Dr. Yiming Wang, who joined the research as a food system expert, says that only a pure crab called Xenogypsis testodinates can survive here.
According to him, ‘no other metazoan [multicellular organisms] life can be found in the vicinity of the vents because of the toxicity of the sulfur fluid plumes.’
He explained that these crabs survive by feeding on zooplankton, which is an organism and unlucky fish that stray there. In addition, they live on the micro-organisms on the seabed.
Dr. Wang added that it is possible that ‘they have also acquired the amazing ability to use sulfur bacteria [bacteria that use sulfur for energy] as a food source.’
Research in this field is very new and this species of crab was discovered only in the year 2000. And how these crabs are able to withstand such a toxic environment is still a mystery.
Away from the holes though, it’s a different matter altogether. A rainbow of sea anemones, snails, oysters and corals thrive in its vicinity. And naval
