Hydrothermal Technology—Principles and Applications - Hydrothermal Technology - page 23

Figure 1.6 Microbial community. (a) The Pompei worm Alvinella at 9 N on the East
Pacific Rise. The densely packed tubes form the wall of a chimney. One worm has emerged:
to the upper right, the tips of the tentacles of several others can be seen at the tube openings.
(b) A dead vent field on the Galapagos Rise near Rose Garden. Partially dissolved shells of
vesicomyid clams fill the extinguished vent opening. But there are a few survivors—mussels
filter-feeding for ambient suspended particles. (c) Barnacles encrust the edge of a vent
opening at the Mariana back-arc spreading center. Alvinoconchid snails live in the openings
where temperatures were measured at 10 2 25 C. Bresiliid shrimp and bythograeid crabs
scavenge off the surfaces of rock and other animals. The cloudiness of the water is caused
by suspended bacteria. (d) The tip of a chimney at the Mariana vent emitting 250 C effluent.
Animals avoid this hot spot but are able to live only a few centimeters below it, where the
temperature is only 25 C. Alvinoconchid snails, bresiliid shrimp, bythograeid crabs, and
limpets can be seen.
Source: Photographs are reproduced from Ref. [100] .
In order to prove the above theories and discoveries, several workers have pro-
posed the thermodynamics of strecker synthesis in hydrothermal systems and also
the hydrothermal synthesis of several amino acids under laboratory conditions.
Schulte and Shock [101] and Shock [102] have worked out the strecker synthesis to
produce biomolecules (amino and hydroxy acids) from starting compounds (ketones,
aldehydes, HCN, and ammonia). They have evaluated their work quantitatively using
thermodynamic data and parameters for the revised Helgeson Kirkham Flowers
(HKF) equation of state. Although there is an overwhelming thermodynamic drive to