Explain why submarine hydrothermal vents are interesting to ...

[mpobi80]

Explain why submarine hydrothermal vents are interesting to scientists. What will be an ideal response?

Question 2

How is the phrase the present is the key to the past used in creating evidence for continental drift? What will be an ideal response?

[morrie123456]

Answer to Question 1

Vents are interesting for biological, geological and economic reasons. Although nearly all of Earths
organisms directly or indirectly rely on photosynthesis for food, vent organisms rely on bacteria that
break down sulfur compounds for nutrients. Metal-rich fluids flow out of vents and form chimney-like
structures. The chimneys are full of metals that have economic value.

Answer to Question 2

Organisms probably lived in the types of environments where they live today, so a freshwater species
would probably not be found in salt water and a seed that would now be too heavy to float in the
atmosphere would have been too heavy in the past. Glaciers probably formed in the same
environments that they do now and not in the middle of the ocean. Similar rock sequences probably
indicate that the rocks are related to each other geologically and did not randomly generate the same
sequence.