A black smoker is a type of hydrothermal vent, a fissure in the planet’s surface, from which water heated by the geothermal heat from beneath issues in to the surrounding water. Geochemist Andrea Koschinsky, from Jacobs University in Bremen, Germany, and her team have been visiting these vents for several years, lowering thermometers in to them to gauge their temperature.
"It's water, but not as we know it," Koschinsky said of her discovery, referring to the fact that the fluid has gone supercritical.
When the temperature and pressures rise in a liquid, evaporation and/or boiling will occur. However, if both temperature and pressure is pushed to a critical point, the gas and the liquid will merge in to what is called a supercritical fluid. This has been done in laboratory and industrial settings, but never before has it been witnessed occurring naturally before.
And Koschinsky believes that this discovery could give us an idea how our oceans end up with traces of gold, copper and iron mixed in.
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- MeganMcKenzie
- added this
- added August 06, 2008
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Beautiful!
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- goldenways
- 5 months ago
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It fascinates me that they may have been kicked up a notch or two from a 2002 Earthquake. I wonder if others will be discovered over the next few years and how that will effect the ocean's content and tempuratures.
Nice find, Megan. -
cool.
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- Manatee_man
- 5 months ago
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supercritical beatdown!
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that's hot
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'Supercritical fluid', is that like a Supermassive Blackhole?
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- rightbrain
- 5 months ago
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The idea that humans thought that supercritical temperatures could only be man made is crazy, nature always kicks ass
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Do I sense a new extremely potential power source?
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Wow this is awesome, If such vents occur on other celestial bodies like europa, then who's to say that life doesn't dwell around these hotspots
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- Frier_peppino
- 5 months ago
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i love science
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Shhh. Don't let this get out. Some corporation will want to bottle and sell it.
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- bluestranger
- 5 months ago
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It's like learning about the four stages of matter in High School (solids, liquids, gases, and plasma) then finding out your high school teacher completely BS'd you... again. Now there is another type of liquid? Wait, don't forget to add 7-eleven slurpees to this list of 'liquids'.
I'll put this in the same boat as my middle school English teacher telling me I couldn't begin a sentence with "but".
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- bishopobispo
- 5 months ago
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this is pretty cool. I wonder if I can do it with my eyes.
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what the hell is "supercritical" and how can you find "the hottest water on earth". as far as i know, water can never ever possibly be hotter than 211 degrees fahrenheit beucause 212 is the temp at which it stops being water.
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- diabolical44
- 5 months ago
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i wish there was a more detailed explanation of what "supercritical" means and its physical applications
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Wow that's extremely fascinating! This makes me think our planet is trying to tell us something. If only we were better listeners...
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Pretty cool that we were able to see a naturally occurring version of a phenomena we recreated in a lab.
Modern science ftw.
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thermonuclear water?! perhaps this can be a new source of energy!!
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this is amazing.. thanks so much for sharing.
