Lessons from the Oceans of Earth

• Biologists were greatly surprised by both the extent and nature of the chemosynthetically based communities discovered in 1977 at hydrothermal vents (and later at chemical seeps) in the deep sea.

• A qualitative shift took place in the understanding of life on Earth with the discovery of these communitiesóa shift that has important implications for the potential for life on (or in) Europa.

• Our understanding of life in the deep sea on Earth is still very much in its youth, for example:

  • No hydrothermal vent communities have yet been studied in either the Indian or Arctic Oceansóthe global biogeographic continuum of hydrothermal vent life remains to be drawn.

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