Exploring the Seafloor

We discover a new hydrothermal field that no one has ever seen before. We officially call it "Alexander von Humboldt Field", in memory of the great polymath, whose 250th birthday was celebrated worldwide in 2019.

Over 300°C hot fluid escapes from this vent and hits the cold seawater. This precipitates metal sulfides, visible as black smoke.

At one of the vents, we have just taken a sample that will be examined later in the laboratory.

For the first time, we can transmit our dives live on the Internet through telepresence. Researchers from all over the world are in touch with us and contribute their own expert knowledge.

Again "black smoke", but on our flight through the deep sea we encounter quite different phenomena …

Here, sulfuric-acid-containing 230°C hot fluid flows out of a "white smoker". With a special, gas-tight fluid sampler, the ROV carefully takes a sample.

Pillow basalt on the East Scotia Ridge. The felt-like, bright microbe filaments characterize diffuse discharges of warm fluids.

Sea anemones and white Kiwa crabs liven up these extinct chimneys. A beautiful, bizarre-looking landscape at the bottom of the sea.

In the lightless deep sea, sparsely populated over long distances, the inhabitants of the hot vents and cold seeps have invented a special kind of metabolism: Their energy does not derive from the sunlight but from the chemical substances that are released in the interior of the Earth - instead of photosynthesis, they conduct chemosynthesis.

Researchers suggest that life on Earth could have originated billions of years ago in places similar to today's submarine hydrothermal systems.