An expedition involving the world's deepest diving research submarine has reportedly discovered rich deposits of gold and other minerals around undersea volcanoes in the South Pacific. The Japanese submarine, which can dive to depths of 6,500 metres arrived in Auckland, New Zealand, after exploring undersea volcanoes off Tonga and Fiji prior to setting sail for the Bay of Plenty. Japanese scientist Ken Takai says it explored exciting volcanoes in the Lau Basin, a seismically active part of the South Pacific between Tonga and Fiji. He says the areas are rich in minerals, including gold.
Scientists from New Zealand and Japan have recovered a variety of deep-sea creatures while making the first-ever dive in a submersible into the crater of a seafloor volcano northeast of New Zealand's aptly named Bay of Plenty. Part-way through a six-dive programme, the scientists have collected numerous long-neck barnacles, shrimps, limpets, tubeworms, and crabs as well as "black smoker" chimneys packed with metallic minerals from inside an active crater.
Oceanographers have long known that there are specialized life forms that survive in thermal vents caused by sea floor spreading and through other movements not fully as yet fathomed. Hardy marine animals live in small communities and benefit from the hot mineral saturated fluids that are ejected from vents in the ocean floor.
Communities of hardy marine animals live close to seafloor vents that pump out hot, acidic, mineral-laden fluids. Even at this early stage, in their findings, the scientists perceive that some of the creatures they have collected may be new to science. Also recovered were colonies of heat-loving micro-organisms that may have potential future applications in pharmaceuticals, in bioremediation of contaminated sites, and in bio-mining.
" It is the first time that tubeworms have been recorded in this part of the Kermadec Arc," said New Zealand project leader Cornel de Ronde of Geological and Nuclear Sciences Ltd (GNS).
" It will be interesting to see how closely they are related to other tubeworms found in the Pacific. Or indeed, if they are a new species," said Dr. de Ronde.
The present focus of four of the dives is the caldera of Brothers volcano, 400km northeast of White Island. Brothers is about three times the size of White Island, with its crater floor 1800m below the surface. It is one of the most active of New Zealand's submarine volcanoes. The scientists chose the crater of Brothers volcano for exploration because it has at least five very active vent sites. This offers a wide variety of fluids, gases, geological samples, and vent-related animals for filming and collection.
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