Plate tectonic is the theory which unified on how the earth worked. The theory has always been there (since 1879)1,2 and was only accepted in the 1950‘s. The theory also predicted the existence of hydrothermal vents; a deep-sea hot springs is formed when cold seawater seeps into magma-emitting cracks on the oceanic surface, heats up, and rises. Although scientists had been actively searching for vents since the early 1960s, it wasn’t until the 1977; when the Galápagos Hydrothermal Expedition led by Richard Von Herzen and Robert Ballard of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, that confirmed their existence using the famous submersible, Alvin ,3,4.
The relationship between SHS and origin of life on the other hand, first came out through Jack Corliss, John Baross and Sarah Hoffman5. They claimed that the conditions surrounding the vent area provided all the conditions for life’s creation on earth. Over time this idea has sprouted and have been elaborated with many in-situ integration with simulation data. I will elaborate more on this in the next post.
- Darwin, G.H (1879) On the procession of viscous spheroid, and on the remote History of the Earth.Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London Vol. 170, 447-538
- McKenzie, D. P (1969) Speculations on the consequences and causes of plate motions. Geophysical Journal International, 18(1), 1–32.
- Corliss, J. B. J, Baross, J.A and Hoffman, S.E (1981) An hypothesis concerning the relationship between submarine hot springs and the origin of life on Earth. Oceanologica Acta 4, 59-69.
- Corliss, J.B, Lyle, M, Dymond. J and Crane, K (1978) The chemistry of hydrothermal mounds near the Galapagos Rift. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, Volume 40, Issue 1,12–24.
- Corliss, J.B, Baross, J.A. and Hoffman, S.E (1981) An hypothesis concerning the relationship between submarine hot springs and the origin of life on Earth, Oceanologica Acta 4, 59–69
Kuhan Chandru 
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