This active hydrothermal vent field was located during a prior geological survey and revisited specifically to count and photograph its chemosynthetic fauna — organisms that build their entire food web around chemicals in the vent fluid rather than sunlight.
We counted dense clusters of vent mussels and shrimp packed directly against the black smoker’s base, tolerating water temperatures that would be lethal just a few meters further out. The temperature gradient across less than two meters was measured at over 200°C.
Exact coordinates are withheld in this writeup — active vent fields are sensitive to both scientific overvisitation and, increasingly, deep-sea mining interest, and we follow a standard practice of not publishing precise locations for undesignated sites.